Who He Is
by Fallain
Summary: When Logan and Max gave up on looking for the cure, Max felt herself falling and waiting for someone to catch her.  Little did she realize until it was almost too late that Alec had been holding her up the whole time.
1. Unfolding

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Dark Angel. Nothing.

Warnings: meh...mild language? sexual tension? Max/Alec

Who He Is

Chapter 1: Unfolding

Max sat at a round table at Crash. She was wearing a simple dark red t-shirt that fit tightly against her form, and had heeled black boots pulled over her tight black pants. She never really wasted much time getting ready for a night at Crash, and her black jacket was slung loosely over the back of the tall chair-stool she was seated at.

The bass from the music vibrated around her, mixing in with the rythm of her heartbeat. Part of her wanted to gag from all the smoke that surrounded the air around her but part of her yearned for it, accepting it as a part of the bar that she had grown accomstimed to. Being at Crash without smoke and loud music would be like waking up one day to find out that someone had chopped off your left hand while you slept. You could live without it - assuming you were right handed - but it was hard to accept and made things seem emptier.

Original Cindy was waiting at the bar to get their pitcher refilled. Max could almost swear she could see her best friends dark curls bouncing with the tune of the music. Her shoulders and upper back was exposed as her silky black shirt was only being held up by a choker that was fasttened around her elegant neck and attached to the front of her shirt. She had on low rise blue jeans that flared out at the bottom, letting her black high heels peek out underneth.

Sketchy was beside her, in his usual baggy jeans and zipped up hoodie, engaging her in a conversation that she was clearly uninterested in. Seeing her other friend from Jam Pony, Max let her eyes take a quick sweep to see who else had paid the small friendly bar a visit tonight.

Normal was off by himself, still in his clothes he'd worn at work and twirling a glass of who knows what around in his hand, probably flavored rum, while he was deep in thought. However, she didn't want to spend a second wondering what had him so lost within himself, knowing that she wouldn't like whatever it was. Kendra, her former roomate that had left her to sleep with a married corrupt cop was off by the stairs with the before-mentioned corrupt cop and Max felt a slight pang of sadness that she wasn't even acknowlaged by someone she used to be so close to before moving on throughout the rest of the crowded room. Other co-workers from Jam Pony were scattered here and there. And at a corner of the bar, Logan sat with Asha.

Max let her gaze rest on them for awhile. Logan Cale. A man that she had once thought she'd loved. A man that she'd once thought loved her back. But it had been over a year since Manticore infected her with this damned virius. And mere months since they'd given up the search for the cure.

Logan was the first person on the outside to know Max for who she really was - a transgenic. And Max was the first person to know that Logan was Eyes Only. That fact alone made them immediatly, if not grudgingly, bond so close together. It made them feel like they could only trust each other. And eventually...tricked them into thinking they were in love.

Love. But really it had all been just an act of desperation. Desperate for acceptance for who they were and the lives they lead. Desperate for an open relationship with no secrets. Desperate for contact.

That desperation had only gotten worse when their option for contact had been ripped away from them before their relationship even had a chance to build. It lead to sleepless nights on the computer, tracking down wild goose chances, crushed hopes and eventually shattered dreams of what they'd once wanted.

The tense dinners became fewer and fewer before neither of them could stand being in the same room together, knowing that they couldn't touch. They both knew deep down that they couldn't go on living like this. The virius hadn't killed their relationship, it had only forced them to see what was never truly there in the first place.

They toke the optimistic road. Remaining friends and trying to find real happiness with others instead of clinging to something that couldn't be and never was. Asha was slowly slipping more and more into Logans life and Max felt jealously and relief all at the same time. Jealousy that she could touch Logan without killing him, yet relief for that same reason. Asha seemed to be the only other person besides Max that was willing to risk everything for Logan and she could see in the blonde girl's eyes how she longed to be in his heart. She just hoped Logan wouldn't be too absorbed in his Eyes Only duty to let her in.

At least one of them had a chance at moving on. Max gratefully accepted a glass of cold beer as Original Cindy returned, muttering about lousey service and how they were lucky that they kept giving this dump such good buisness. OC had a way of knowing exactly what Max was thinking most of the time and snapped her fingers infront of her home girl's face, bringing her back from her thoughts about the pair of blondes seated at the bar.

"Gurl, I know yo ain't off lost in la la land again about yo wrecked love life."

Max feined a hurt expression as OC gave her an apologetic half shrug. "Oh ouch OC. Way to be harsh." She let the moment roll off with a soft laugh. Original Cindy was her best friend, through thick and thin. The other girl always told her the truth how she saw it, her honest opinion about everything and anything, even if the truth hurt. Even if her opinion was harsh.

Yea, so Max had a wrecked love life. Since her and Logan had reluctuntly given up, she'd had a few one night stands, but nothing that clicked. After being with Logan and wanting so badly to be in love, and experiencing the pain of the realization that she wasn't, she wasn't going to settle for second best again. She wanted that heart-pounding, dizzy, weak in the knees, typical romance that the dramas on tv swore existed and she wasn't going to stay with anyone who didn't give it to her. And so far, none of these guys had given her so much of a flutter of anything above between her legs.

Sometimes her thoughts strayed back to Zach, who was probably happily living a lie, thinking it had always been his life. She remembered how passionate he had always been when it came to her and her heart - no - his heart, twisted as she remembered that it was indeed his heart that beat inside of her. He had literally given everything for her, his life both mentally and physically, and she'd given him nothing in return. She was too busy playing make-believe happily-ever-after with Logan in a story that didn't have an ending.

But she couldn't bring herself to look him up. She'd only be doing it out of pity, maybe emotionally saditic curiousity, and in the end she'd only hurt him again. But worse, this time she would ruin his life for a third time if she opened him back up to his former memories again. That was a pain that she refused to put him through. Again.

The crack of pool balls behind her had both her and Original Cindy glancing to the open space in the back of the bar where the owner had managed to find room to squeeze a rickity pool table in. Sketchy had apparently moved his energetic conversation to Alec, who was busy pretending to focus on the game ahand. Max knew he didn't need to focus to sink those balls wherever he wanted them and it was all for show to try and not raise his opponent's suspicion that he was being hustled.

She let her eyes roam over him, silently thanking him for wearing a turtleneck to hide his barcode even though he always complained about how sufficated they made him feel around his throat. He had the grey sleeves pushed up to his elbows as he leaned forward across the table, lining up his next shot. His dark green eyes flickered up and met hers across the room, and he allowed himself a cocky smirk and a wink before shoving forward the pool stick and sinking the ball perfectly into the corner pocket.

Max rolled her own dark brown eyes and re-filled her and Original Cindy's glasses as her friend shook her own head, letting the curls bounce around her slender face.

"Boo, ya know he only does it to urk you."

"Yea, yea I know." Max admitted. "I just wish he wasn't so damn good at it." She smiled and OC returned the smile, laughing alittle.

"That's cause he tries so hard ta get ta you. You know he likes seeing you all flustered and knowing he's got yo full attention." Original Cindy leveled Max with a knowing look and they both laughed a little.

"Sure OC, he's got my attention. And my hatred." She made a face and toke another sip of her beer as Original Cindy glanced over at the pool table.

"Ya know what they say boo, Hatred is a strong emotion. Maybe he likes that you feel such strong emotions for him."

Max over-exaderated a sigh. "Your missing the point. I have a strong emotion. To choke. His life. Out of him." She emphasized her words and placed her palm down on the table with each period, the other resting loosely around her glass that was quickly emptying again.

Hatred is a strong emotion. Something about that quote struck a familiar chord with Max and for some reason it bothered her that she couldn't place where she had heard it from before.

"What's that quote from?" She asked off-handedly.

Original Cindy just shrugged. "Dunno. Just remember it."

"Huh...me too..." Max trailed off,searching memory lane and letting her fingers absentmindedly tap against the worn and chipped table top.

She did feel strongly for Alec. Maybe hatred was an over-exaderation, but there was no particular emotion she could ever put her finger on when she was around the fellow transgenic. Strong annoyance when he wouldn't shut his mouth. Strong happiness when he made her laugh with one of his smart assed remarks. Strong panic when he was in trouble. Strong desbeilf that one single person could get into so much trouble in the first place. Strong worry when she didn't know where he was because he was probably getting into more trouble. Just strong emotions all around, all the time. And it was why she always felt such a pull to him, even when he was being stubborn or obnoxious, because he made her feel. When she was around him, she didn't feel empty, she felt full of life, full of emotions. And he was the reason for them all.

She silently wished that she felt strong affection for him, but she knew that it was only the lonely part of her wanting that. The lonely part that whispered to her everytime she followed a random guy home that maybe this guy was it, the one. The lonely part that was always disapointed at the end of the night.

She didn't want Alec to end up being another disapointment at the end of the night. It would ruin their friendship and without Alec, she'd be back to her empty, un-feeling existance. So that part remained quiet and she kept him at a friendly arms length at all times. Sometimes it was hard, his personality was so contagious you just felt drawn to it like a moth to the flame. But she refused to get close enough to be burned. She'd just flutter around, enjoying his light and warmth in her dark night sky instead.

Speaking of light and warmth, Max could feel his pressence approaching before she heard his footsteps, smelled his familiar scent of gasoline and dust that came from riding his green Suzuki GXR and his apartment that he never bothered to clean.

"Hey boy. How much you steal from those peeps tanight?" OC asked him, leaning over a bit to make room for him to lean in between her and Max.

"Steal?" He furrowed his eyebrows. "Cindy, i'm offended. I don't steal, I simply out perform their talents and, well, it's not my fault if they're cocky enough to put money down."

Original Cindy pointed a finger at him, her long nails painted a dangerous shade of red. "First off pretty boy, it's ORIGINAL Cindy. Ain't nothin but the fresh and real right here." She motioned a hand down, showing herself off as the one and only. "And second, don't be tryin to peddle your bullshit over here. Original Cindy knows yo game."

She reached over and bumped fists with Max, who looked at Alec with mock seriousness. At least pool hustling was semi-legit. Much better than robbing little old ladies of their televisions anyways. "So how much?"

Alec grinned. "$300. Not bad for a night."

"And what are you going to do with $300 anyways? Blow it all on booze and strippers?" Max re-filled her glass with the last of the pitcher and sighed, it was her turn to get the re-fill.

Alec held up his hands in surrender. "Geez, what's with you ladies tonight? I didn't come over here to get insulted." But under both of their gazes he shrugged and admitted. "Not all of it anyways, gotta go get some groceries tomorrow. All I've got at home with my name on it is a cup of ramen. It's no pasta-ala-fancy-french-name like your used to, but it's supposed to taste like chicken."

Max smiled. There it was. That genuine smile that Alec always seemed to be able to coax out of her. That light, stress free, weightless feeling inside of her like she could float. Happiness.

It was short lived, as stress appeared next to Original Cindy, who met her eyes apologetically knowing that their new visiter often caused Max's eyes to cloud over with an array of unpleasent emotions that Original Cindy hated seeing on her home-girl's face.

"Hey girls." Logan approached, standing closer to Original Cindy to make sure of the safe space between him and Max's unintentially lethal skin, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. He nodded his head to Alec in a greeting. "Alec."

Something flickered across Logan's eyes that hid behind his glasses and Max was sure that he felt the same way about Alec as she did Asha. Mixed, repressed feelings of jealousy. Maybe it was from back when he had thought Max and Alec were a couple, or maybe he just saw something in them, or the male transgenic himself, that she couldn't see. Or that she just didn't want to see.

Alec nodded back, micking Logans posture by shoving his own hands into his jean pockets, giving both me the apperance of being on the defense.

Max was the one who responded. "What's up Logan?" He gave him a small tight smile, nothing compared to the carefree one Alec had pulled out of hiding only seconds earlier.

"Nothing, ah, well, something." He rocked back and forth a bit on the balls of his feet, looking hesitant, like he usually did when asking a favor of Max these days. As if he no longer felt like he had the right to ask anything of her. "I was talking to Asha," He nodded to the bar, his eyes flickering to the blonde girl he had left sitting here, nursing a bottle of beer, "And a couple of her friends in her...group...got some of their stuff taken while they were out the earlier tonight...we were wondering if you would be willing to help get it back."

Max knew exactly what he meant, and Alec and probably even Original Cindy knew. Some members of S1W had gotten their pictures taken while they were out on a "justice run" for who knows what this time and they needed someone to get in and erase the cameras before the police were able to ID them.

"I can pay you of course..." Logan added, this time looking at Alec, knowing how to spark the other man's attention.

Max however, waved her hand, and covered Alec's mouth with her other before he had a chance to respond. "It's cool Logan. We'll help out."

She didn't want Logan's money, and she wasn't about to let Alec take it either, no matter how much he was going to whine about it later. She hated feeling like she was in debt to Logan. She wanted to change this world for the better as much as he and the S1W did, and helping them seemed like the only way she could do it so she was more than obliged to help anyway she could. And drag Alec along for the ride of course. It never hurt to have a well-trained transgenic watching her back even if she'd never admit she enjoyed his company.

"Thanks." Logan let gratitude fall across his face, giving her a wide smile. "Thanks alot." He looked for a second like he wanted to reach out, hug her, squeeze her shoulder, pat her on the hand, anything, but resigned himself to merely nod and back away and return to Asha at the bar.

Alec gaped at her, his green eyes wide. "What the Hell Max? I coulda used that money!"

Max ignored him, leaning forward and grabbing the beer pitcher from the middle of the table. "My turn for the round." She tilted her head to look at Alec beside her and ruffled his hair. "I'll even get you one, so shut it."

Alec indeed did shut his mouth with the promise of free beer as he dragged an extra stool up to their table to join them as Max got up to make her way through the crowd to the bar. Neither of them saw the way Logan looked at Max as he left, an un-reconizeable look in his eyes.

"Man. I should be eating my ramen right now."

"Shhhhh" Max glared sideways at Alec and shushed him for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past 30 minutes.

Logan and Asha had left Crash after their conversation so that Logan could go home and get the exact corrdinates and information for Max. The establishment that S1W had raided earlier that evening was a rectangular, grey bricked building that bore a horrifying resembelence to Manticore with his barbed wire surrounding the perimeter and dark woods on the outside.

Dark woods that Max was currently crouched in with Alec by her side. The road leading up to the building; that illegally profitted from mass producing food stamps, was long and barren on all sides of it. Anyone looking out a window would have seen them coming from miles away. So Max and Alec had opted for the same path that Asha and her group had taken earlier when they broke in to steal food stamps to give out to the hungry like a band of modern day Robin Hoods. Unfortuntly, that path meant leaving their motorcycles hidden in some bushes at the edge of the forest property, and trekking through the dark woods for the past 30 minutes, occasionally getting snagged on thorn vines that littered the floor or walking through the uncomforble spider web hanging from the branches overhead.

Max pulled the collar of her jacket up higher around her neck, missing the warmth that Crash had provided with it's packed body temperature. The wind seemed to be blowing harder, the darker it got, sending it's icy wind whipping across her face and through her hair. Alec seemed to be on the same mind set as her, wishing he was somewhere warmer still, probably more than her since he didn't even have a jacket on, just the grey turtle neck that he had worn to Crash that night, except he had finally pulled the sleeves down and had his arms crossed tightly across his chest, trying to pull the hems of the sleeves furthur over his frozen fingers,

"If it starts snowing I swear..."

"Shhhhh..." Max wasn't even counting how many times she had shushed him now. It seemed to be the only noise her cold lips could make lately.

"It's because God hates us. And you know why he hates us? He's just jealous that he didn't get to make this fine packaging himself."

Max cracked an involuntary smile and lightly punched Alec in the arm, trying to get him to focus on the mission at hand. Couldn't this guy be serious for two seconds?

"Seriously. SHHH" She shushed more urgently, trying to press the seriousness of the situation into his head. This whole raid had her on edge already, and it was more than just the cold that was making her shiver.

"Fine. Fine. Serious." She heard him reply beside her with a disgruntled tone. He couldn't take this as seriously as she was at the moment. He hadn't escaped that night over 10 years ago. He wasn't having vivid flashbacks of running through snowy woods at dark from a prison looking building like the one currently infront of them, with an exact replica of that forbodding barbed wire fence surrounding the secrets within it's walls.

Or perhaps, since he had spent more time in Manticore, he was having worse flashbacks and was only trying to distract himself the only way he knew how.

Quit being irrational Max, get your head in the game. She shook her head. There was no point in being lost in her memories that brought forth paranoia. Manticore was long gone, blown to smitherins. She had seen it herself, she had forced the actions of it's downfall to happen herself.

Now if only she'd stop seeing the ghost of her childhood torture chamber in the building that loomed infront of her.

She allowed herself to look at Alec, wondering if it's uncanny resemmblence to Manticore was affecting him but he seemed too pre-occupied with trying to make his sleeves longer so he could use them as gloves as well to cover his frozen fingers.

They stealthfully crept forward, at the edge of the woods. They'd have to move fast to get over the fence and to the dark shadows surrounding the building, they couldn't allow themselves to stay in the streetlights that lit up sections of the yard for too long. But then again, if the human S1W group could get in, it should be a piece of cake for two transgenics.

She'd forgotten the first rule of a seige, never assume anything will be easy. Always expect and prepare for the worst.

The two of them blurred through the gap from the woods to the fence and gracefully jumped the fence, not even brushing near the dangerous barbed wire at the top. They landed with catlike grace on the otherside, and without so much as a glance at each other, darted in unison to the wall, mimiking each other's movements as they pressed themselves against the icy bricks at their backs.

She looked at Alec to motion for him to follow her and was taken aback for a second by what she saw in his eyes before she regained herself, creeping quietly along the shadows with him close behind her.

The playful sparkle she usually saw in his eyes was gone, replaced by his military training as his mission must have finally sunk in now that they were offically in enemy territory and in action. What she saw in his eyes was loyalty and trust in her leadership as her followed her movements, breaking into the same window Asha had broken into earlier and slipping inside the building undetected.

There were few guards inside. Chances were that they hadn't even discovered the stolen food stamps yet, and wouldn't until someone did inventory in the morning. That would be at 6am. It was now 2am, giving them more than enough time to get the job done, get out, and be long gone by then. Alec could go home and have his beloved ramen that he kept muttering about and Max could curl up under her warm covers and just be happy to be not running around in a cold nightmare.

Max and Alec crept down the hallways. He stumbled into her as she stopped abruptly as a guard appeared around the corner but before Max could act or the guard could even realize that someone else was in the hallway, Alec rushed past her, jumping to run along the wall and twist himself in the air to where he landed behind the guard, covering his mouth with one hand and using the other to grab the man's gun and bring the offending metal weapon down on his head like a club, efficiently knocking him out within seconds.

When the man crumpled to the floor, Alec bent down to check for a pulse and gave Max a slight nod before she sped down the hall to reunite with him, barely having time to marvel at Alec's training from the 10 years longer he had spent at Manticore than him. She vaugley wondered if she had stayed that night instead of escaping, if she could defy gravity by running along walls like she was in some D-grade action flick as well.

The security room was around the next corner, and Max found herself grateful at how easy this had been. She kept repeating to herself that of course it was easy, if a couple of humans could pull this off there way no way her or Alec would have a problem. She didn't even need to have had dragged Alec along on this mission, she could have been in and out easy as pie without having to listen to him running his mouth all through the woods.

She couldn't say it hadn't been entertaining though. As much as she willed him to just shut up because they were on a job, his voice was always pleasent company and never boring. Like how some people in the country could fall asleep to the sounds of crickets chirping in the night breeze, Alec's voice put her at ease. That voice that didn't compare to any other sound, deep without being overly husky and light without sounding like a little boy. That voice that was pure Alec.

That voice that was whispering for her to not look for porn on the computer while he stood watch by the door and she hurried to the machines to look for the current cd recording the security cameras for tonight.

She didn't know which one it was so she didn't take any chance and ejected all four cds, stuffing them in her jacket pocket to be disposed of later and zipping it shut for safety. Logan could handle their destruction, all she had to do was get them to him.

She rushed past Alec, pausing at the doorway to confirm the halls were clear and they were both down the hall, out the window and over the fence in record time.

Once they landed on the other side of the fence Alec let out a laugh.

"Whooooo easiest job in a long time." He reached out to playfully push Max on the shoulder as she turned to face him.

Despite herself, Max returned the smile. She couldn't help it, he always brought it out.

"Yea yea, now let's go get these to Logan so you can get your ramen and shut up about it." She turned her back to him, blowing her warm breath on her fingers as the cold air reminded them that it was still here, ignoring the warm heaters that had been inside the building.

Never assume a job is easy.

Both of them satisfyed and assuming the job was now long done with, let their guards down. Neither of them heard the guard as he ran out of the building, spotting them at the edge of the woods on the other side of the fence. Neither of them heard him running forward. He was human, there was no gate at this side of the fence but he didn't need to get to the other side of the wire fence to shoot through the holes at what was on the other side.

The shot rang out, terrifying and sharp as the crack of a whip in the still night air. Max felt something wet splatter against her jacket and her heart stopped, hoping to whatever God existed that it had started snowing. She didn't care if it snowed, she didn't care if the sky opened up and dumped buckets of ice water on her, just please oh please don't let it be...

She caught her breath and quickly turned, her long hair whipping around her in the wind and Alec looked up at her from the spreading red stain on his side. Their eyes locking with identical looks of horror - neither wanting to believe that Alec had just been shot.

End Chapter 1


	2. Bloody Realizations

Chapter 2 - Bloody Realizations

The guard had been an excellent aim, and his shot had been true. But the damned bullet had clipped the wire fence that separated him from the intruders that had just escaped. Instead of hitting it's target in the heart, it ricochet off and hit his side, splattering blood over the back of his partner as it ripped through fabric and skin.

Max's wide panicked eyes locked onto Alec's in a look of identical horror and a mantra of '' repeated itself frantically in her mind.

Max couldn't believe Alec had just been shot. This was supposed to have been an easy job,

Alec couldn't believe he had just been shot. Just when they had thought they were safe and finished with the job that was supposed to have been easy.

Max moved first, grabbing Alec's right hand as he wrapped his left around his torso to cling painfully to the wound in his side, blood seeping through his frozen fingers. She tore off into the woods, not daring to look back at the guard who most likely had more than one bullet in that gun. That gun whose shot had rang out and most likely alerted other guards. That gun that had put a bullet into Alec. That gun that had tried to take away the life of the only person who made her feel anything anymore.

Her heart constricted in her chest as she ran, but she wasn't sure if it was from the panic of Alec's wound, the icy air she was quickly drawing into her lungs or over-exertion between the efforts of running and holding back tears at the same time. She was a soldier. She was strong. She couldn't afford to cry right now. Alec needed her. His life depended on her not being weak right now. On her getting him through these woods and back to their bikes where they could safely retreat to Seattle and get him patched up. Patched up and back to his sarcastic self in no time flat.

But as she ran she could feel the tight grip that his fingers held onto her own loosen. She refused to let go and tightened her fingers around his hand harder, her arm starting to ache as she was practically dragging him, stumbling behind her until she felt a sharp yank as his legs gave out and he fell to the forest floor, curling in on himself in pain, unable to go any further in his condition.

Any regular human would have collapsed the second the bullet went into their body and burst out the other side. But being a transgenic soldier, Alec had been able to put on a burst of adrenaline that had carried him into the woods being dragged by Max, but now it had given out, leaving him helpless on the forest floor. Max fell to her own knees beside him, putting her hands on his shoulder, and not being able to tell if he was shaking from the temperature or blood loss. Please don't let it be shock, it's too soon, It can't be shock already, she prayed to herself.

"Alec? Alec, roll over, let me see." She urged him, giving her voice a commanding tone, silently begging those loyal and trusting green eyes to follow her orders like he had in the building.

He made a soft whining sound in the back of his throat and made an effort to lift himself on his elbows before collapsing back to the ground, his breaths coming in deep ragged gasps.

Max toke deep breaths herself, willing her mind to calm down from the whirlwind of panic laced emotions running amok through her body at the sight of Alec so vulnerable before her. Gently putting one hand under his neck to support his head, she wrapped her other arm around him to grab his shoulder that was laying under him on the ground. She slowly turned his body so he was flat on his back. He still had one hand wrapped around himself desperately clutching the wound in his side trying to make the blood stop leaving his body. She tried to block out the strangled noise he made as he tried to not cry out in pain, as the movement tore at his already battered skin but it echoed around in her mind anyways and she was sure it would haunt her nightmares.

She toke off her jacket, willing herself to suck it up as the winter air bit at her exposed skin on her arms so she could press the fabric to Alec's side, trying to stanch the blood flow. She eased his own hand away so she could replace it with her jacket and tried to not cringe at knowing what the wet, sticky substance coating his hand was as it fell limply to his side on the ground.

Goosebumps tried to coax her arms into shaking from the cold and Max mentally shook herself. Focusing on nothing but Alec, she ignored Jack Frost. When she escaped from Manticore she'd been only a child running through the snow in nothing but a thin hospital gown. Now she was older, stronger, wearing much more and it wasn't even snowing. There was no way she was weaker now than she was then and she wasn't going to allow herself the sanctuary of showing any weakness right now.

She gently eased the pressure off of the wound to check for the blood flow. Thankfully, the pressure mixed with the chilly temperature had helped stop the blood. Alec's chest still rose and fell, even if his breath shook and his eyes held a disconnected, glazed over stare under his heavy eyelids that threatened to close. She resisted shaking him and ordering him to stay awake but she was at a loss of what to do. She could try to carry him back to the bikes but if she moved him right now she could risk re-tearing the delicate skin that hadn't had a chance to heal and allowing the blood to start pouring forth again and risk him bleeding out before he could get help. Even if she did manage to fireman carry him back to the bikes, he couldn't ride his own in this condition, and if she got him on the back of hers she was worried that he could loose his fight with consciousness halfway back home and fall off the back.

But she couldn't stay here. The guard knew they escaped, and dawn was quickly approaching. Would they wait until their boss arrived to chance them into the woods? Probably not. She looked around, her cat-like eyes scanning the darkness and finding nowhere nearby that she could drag Alec's body for shelter or even thick enough bushes to hide behind, in, or under, what a lousy excuse for a forest.

Behind her was an exceptionally large tree trunk and she carefully wrapped one arm under his arms and around his torso, and the other under his knees, not daring to lift him, but crouching and slowly dragging him sideways to the dark sanctuary of the tree's shadow in the darkness that seemed to press in threateningly on them from all sides.

His breathing increased as she felt his heart hammering against her arm, fighting with himself to not make any pained noises while she tried to help him. Max leaned heavily against the tree trunk, cradling his limp body between her legs and kept her arm wrapped around him, holding him close to her. Her dark hair fell into her face as she dug his phone out of his pocket, pressing the numbers she knew by heart with her shaking, reddened fingers.

Logan picked up on the second ring even though it seemed like an eternity to Max.

"Logan?" She whispered, and her voice cracked, scared to speak any louder even as her ears strained to hear any giveaway noises of the guards chasing after them. So far the woods had been silent, but she didn't dare to hope that they hadn't attempted to follow them.

"Max? What's-"

She cut him off, not knowing what he was going to ask. What are you doing on Alec's phone? What's up? What's wrong? It didn't matter at the moment.

"Logan, we need help." She mentally told the part of her inside to shut up that hated asking Logan, or anyone, for help and swallowed her pride. It was for Alec.

Alec, who had lost the fight to stay awake and was now completely limp in her arms with the exception of the tremors that shook through his body letting her know his heart was still beating, lying against her with his full weight as his head tilted back over her arms. Her heart skipped a beat at the memory that didn't need to flash back because it seemed like it was re-enacting itself in front of her eyes.

The memory of Ben's lifeless body in her arms, in the woods, as they hid from guards.

She vaguely heard Logan's voice, urgent, on the other end, asking questions she couldn't make out.

"Alec's shot...he's shot. I can't move him, he can't move, we can't move. We need help..." She tried to put the panicked thoughts racing through her mind into sentences and trailed off, her brown eyes misting and she tried to not focus on anything but Alec's heart still beating under her hand.

"Max...what can I do?"

"Come get us." Max hissed out. What did he mean what could he do? He sent them out here, he could damn well come and get them.

Logan hesitated. "Max...I can drive out to the woods...but...how will I find you? How can I get Alec back if you can't move him?"

Max shook her head, not thinking about the fact that he couldn't see her. "We'll figure something out! I'll -" She was going to say to call Alec's phone until he heard it ringing but she couldn't risk the guards that might be in the forest hearing it first. She couldn't use a sort of light to signal him because that'd be even more of a homing beacon. "We'll just, we'll figure something out!"

"Max..." Logan sighed; she could almost see him biting his lip through the phone. "...Is he alive?"

She panicked for a second at the question. "Yes!" the word should have made her relived, reassured her that although he was weak, unconscious and his body wouldn't stop shaking, he was still alive in her arms. And going to stay that way if she had anything to do with it.

"Is he conscious?"

She whimpered at that question. "...No."

Logan was thinking on the other end. "There's no way that you could..." He trailed off and Max felt a cold fury building inside her at the suggestion of how he was going to finish that question.

"If you asking me to leave him forget it." She growled out, a dangerous tone in her voice.

Logan's voice on the other end was horrified. "No, no, oh god no Max. I didn't - I don't - I wouldn't -" He stuttered, his words falling over themselves and she honestly didn't know if it was because he truly wasn't thinking that or the deadly undertone in her answer had him backpedaling and trying to take it back. "I just...can you come back for him? We can...I don't know..." She heard something bang on his table as if he was slamming his fist down in frustration. Damn it. He was supposed to be the smart one with all the answers. But if his only answer was for her to leave Alec out here to die, for his body to be found the same way Ben's had. He didn't have any answers that she'd accept so she hung up the phone without a second thought.

She scanned through the contact list on his phone, ignoring the return call Logan was placing through. The only other person besides Logan that she could depend on in a situation like this was currently dying in her arms. Original Cindy couldn't do anything, though, at least unlike Logan, it wouldn't be from lack of trying. She knew her best friend would get out here and try to help her carry Alec back, but she also knew OC wasn't strong enough and she had nothing but a bicycle for transportation. Sketchy was out of the question even though he owed her a lifetime of favors. Joshua didn't own a phone...Joshua.

Logan called back a second time and this time Max answered.

"Go get Joshua."

"Joshua?" Logan asked and Max wanted to scream in frustration. Damn it, she didn't have time for him to be repeating her words back. Alec didn't have time.

"Yea, Joshua, know you, big dog guy I hang out with?" She snapped. "Go and get him, come to the woods. He's half DOG; he'll be able to track our scent." He was also big and strong enough to carry Alec without harming him any further or struggling like she would have.

"Ok ok, I'll be there as soon as I can. Hang on." Logan responded, taking the submissive route. If he had any questions or concerns, he was at least smart enough to not mention them right now as Max snapped the small flip phone shut in one hand. She squeezed her eyes shut at Logan's last words. 'Hang On.' Was he referring to Alec hanging onto his life? Or her hanging onto her sanity if she lost Alec tonight?

She ran her fingers through his short hair. Was that her own body shaking, or was Alec just shaking so hard that his motions were vibrating through her? She couldn't tell where her body ended and his began, and she bent over and clung to him, hating how cold he felt and trying feebly to convince herself that it was only because of the winter air. She blinked furiously, still refusing to let the tears fall. She'd stay strong until the end. She had to.

She stared at the dark ground beside Alec's body, her cat vision allowing her to see all the leaves covering the ground. She couldn't look at him. Every time she looked at him, all she could see was Ben.

Why did it always seem like history was doomed to repeat itself and she was always going to loose those that were most important to her? It wasn't fair. Alec had been her light, her warmth, the one thing to keep her happy these past few months. She couldn't loose him. Not now. Not ever. She couldn't be left in the dark again.

It wasn't because she'd been here before. It wasn't because it was once Ben cradled lifelessly on her lap that she refused to leave. Ben who had the same face as Alec, who she saw ghosts of every time she looked at Alec.

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of morbid flashbacks.

But Alec was not Ben.

Alec's eyes were different. The same shade of green, the same shape, and the same soft eyelashes. The same freckles even; that lined underneath their eyes and over their noses. But Alec's held a sparkle in them, a mischief that couldn't be extinguished. Ben's eyes were always dull, haunted, turned inwards, searching his soul for answers that he'd never find.

Alec was not Ben.

Alec was so full of life and energy all the time. From hustling pool to harassing Max and Original Cindy as he followed them around the Jam Pony. Even to the awkward laugh he'd let escape his lips whenever Normal would get too close and creepy.

Ben had been reserved. Only letting his energy out when it was focused on the blue lady, letting his words and actions be tinged with a dangerous edge.

She loved Ben.

But Alec was not Ben.

Ben had died that night, in her arms by her own hands and she had left him there to have his body taken back to Manticore.

But Alec was not Ben.

Alec was not going to die in her arms. She was not going to leave his body to be found by the guards.

Not because Alec looked like Ben. Not because she couldn't bear to go through that same situation twice. But because Alec was Alec. Loosing Ben had been painful. But loosing Alec would be devastating. She kept Ben fondly in her memories and moved on the best she could. If she lost Alec, she wouldn't be able to move on; she didn't know how she'd live. What did a moth do with its life when it had no light to flutter around?

She loved Ben like a brother.

But she loved Alec...as something more.

It hit her like a ton of bricks. The light-headed happiness she felt when Alec made her laugh, the dizziness she sometimes got when they'd brush shoulders, the way sometimes she felt like melting when his eyes would meet hers for an undying second...she had always just assumed it was the charisma he carried around, just a part of being around Alec. Why hadn't she realized until now that the love she had been searching for had been right under her the whole time? Not just under her, but practically supporting her entire weight as if he had been giving her a piggy back ride these past few painful months.

When she first started loosing hope that her and Logan would find a cure, she had felt like she had fallen off a cliff and she was just waiting for someone to catch her. Why hadn't she realized until now that no one had caught her because Alec hadn't let her fall in the first place? Because he was still hanging over the top of that ledge, clinging to her hand, not letting her drop.

And she had blamed him too. The day that doctor toke off for Canada with their only hope for the cure, leaving behind only cryptic papers for them to figure out for themselves. The day that Max paid to have that explosive removed from Alec's neck instead of working towards the cure.

That day flashed back through her mind. He had only minutes left before the explosive would go off and kill him. He only needed one more barcode to take back to White. He had tazered her and left her down for the count and she couldn't describe the rage she had felt towards him back then, looking up and seeing him holding that knife. All she saw was the knife. She missed the look in his eyes. The look that as he slammed that knife down in the ground instead of her heart, said he would rather die than kill her.

Hate really was the strongest emotion...and it was what had opened the flood gate to all the other emotions Alec reminded her were out there when she was around him.

She realized with a sinking, twisted feeling in her gut that his shakes were getting worse as he practically convulsed in her arms and she cradled his head against her chest, protecting his neck and silently begged his body to be gentler to him while it was in this weakened condition.

It was as if he was having a seizure, but he had told her when she once asked if he needed any of her pills, that a few years after her unit escaped, they found a temporary cure for the seizures. They injected them with something that calmed their nervous system but it was something that stopped working if they weren't taking the medication when they got...

...cold...

Max wrapped her jacket and arms tighter around Alec's body, trying desperately harder to keep him even slightly warm as the seizure hit and rode his body harshly. She bit her lip; she never remembered looking this helpless when she had a seizure in the past. But then again, what would she know when her own world was tilting out of control?

She sat up quickly, alert, tightening her grip if possible even more on Alec as she heard footsteps crashing through the woods. She mentally prepared herself, not just to fight, but to completely take out anyone who threatened Alec a second time tonight.

Thankfully it was Joshua's tall form that she saw running towards them.

"Joshua!" She'd wanted to scream it but all that came out was a relived squeak and Joshua knelt down beside them, letting out a pained dog-like whine at seeing Alec's condition.

"He's having a seizure...be careful...please be careful..." She begged the taller being, and reluctantly letting go of the death grip she had held onto Alec as the gentle beast man did indeed do as she was begging him and carefully lifted Alec's still convulsing body in his arms.

Alec's head snapped back over Joshua's arm as he was lifted and Max rushed to his side, holding his head securely in place against Joshua's shoulder, trying to prevent any further harm from falling on the poor transgenic who had been through so much on what should have been an easy job.

"It ok." Joshua said in his quiet, low voice. And she wasn't sure if he was reassuring her, Alec, or himself. "Joshua has Alec. Alec be ok."

Her overwhelming gratitude at having a friend like Joshua was cut short as flashlight beams cut through the woods behind them, her sensitive ears picking up more footsteps through the underbrush.

"The guards..." She urgently whispered. "Quick, we have to go, now! Quick!"

Joshua didn't need to be told twice as his long legs carried him twice as fast as Max's and they hurried out of the woods.

Logan's junked up car was sitting on the side of the road, headlights off but the engine was running, waiting. Max allowed her eyes to wander to where she knew her and Alec's bikes were hidden but no part of her was willing to leave Alec's side just to ride her baby home. She'd broken her Ninja out of an impound once, and she could easily do it again.

Joshua tried his best to climb into the backseat of Logan's small car carefully with his damaged friend in his arms, but given his size, he was having issues. Max ran around to the other side, sliding into the back seat opposite of them, trying to gently take Alec's legs and help him slide in to lay down on the backseat.

She was thankful for the heater that was surprisingly still working in the old beat up car and on full blast. The dim overhead light on the roof of the car however, illuminated how pale Alec had become and the blue tinge his lips had taken on. Alarmed, she noticed that it also illuminated red slowly dripping from Alec's body to the backseat as Joshua finally squeezed in and pulled the door shut behind him.

As Logan sped off down the road, the passenger front seat was empty. Max sat behind Logan on the drivers side and Joshua was opposite of her, cramped in the tiny car, and even worse because of Alec in between them but he didn't let his own discomfort show. She had tried her best to spread Alec out and was glad that at least his shaking had slowed. Although she was scared to ask herself if it was because his body was warming back up, or because he had lost too much blood and he was slowly slipping away from her forever. His upper torso was propped up against Joshua, who had his large arms protectively around his smaller friend, steadying him as the car jostled with each bump in the road. Max found herself silently; unreasonably yelling at Logan for making the car shake so much as she had Alec's legs pulled into her lap while she held her now ruined Jacket once again to the wound in his side trying to get it to stop bleeding once more.

"I hate to ask guys, but where are we going?" Logan's voice came from the front seat, his eyes never leaving the road. "We can't take him to the hospital. It's 4am, so I won't be able to get a hold of Sam...and I seriously doubt Terminal City has what we'd need to take care of him...neither does my house..." He trailed off and Max felt something relative to despair sink in her stomach.

"It does." Joshua's low voice spoke.

"What?" Logan's eyes flickered to the backseat in his rearview mirror.

"Terminal City. Has medical equipment. Other transgenics for blood infusion." He told Logan, urging him with unspoken words to drive to the tainted city. Logan didn't need to hear the words, he just nodded, looking back through the windshield and driving as fast as he dared.

By the time they'd gotten through the gates to Transgenic City, Alec's seizure had completely stopped, leaving him deathly still in Joshua's arms and Max had to keep her fingers tight around his wrist just to reassure herself that his pulse was still there, although weak and slow. When the car stopped and Luke opened the door for Joshua since Logan had called them ahead to let them know to be ready for them, Max felt like she was going to loose all her self control as Alec's body was once again pulled away from her grasp.

As Joshua rushed to the medic ward in the broken down and crumbling building, she finally did allow herself to break. She'd stayed strong for Alec. And now she could finally let herself feel weak and all the pent up tears finally burst out as she let herself finally scream in frustration and anguish. She leaned forward in the backseat of Logan's car that now held the metallic scent of blood - Alec's blood - and let the tears wreck through her body as she gripped her own hair tight in her hands.

Logan, who had remained in the car, finally got out of the drivers seat, and opened her door. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and hold her close but knew better, knowing that the smallest touch could send him right into that medical ward after Alec in critical condition.

Instead he opted for crouching beside her, looking down and averting his eyes so she wouldn't have to feel ashamed that someone was witnessing her break down, but could still feel his presence so she'd know she wasn't alone.

She may as well have been alone since she couldn't touch him.

When she started to quiet down, he tried to speak to her, softly like an adult would coax a scared child.

"I'm so sorry Max...I know how hard this must be for you..."

Those words and the sincerity in his voice almost sent her back over the edge. Back in the woods she had been so sure that Logan had wanted her to leave Alec to die that she had bordered on hating the man. But he had came through and brought Joshua to the rescue. And now he was here trying to support her and reminding her how much she missed how close their friendship had once been.

She sniffled hard and rubbed her cheeks with her hands, trying to dry them although she knew it was a useless attempt but didn't try to talk, not trusting her voice to stay steady and her throat aching under the sudden rough assault her crying had caused.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry if it felt like I'd let you down. I would have found a way to get you out of there Max, I swear it. I never...I didn't mean it like that." And he knew Max knew exactly what he was referring to, the only thing that had caused her anger over the phone earlier, the hint that he wanted her to leave Alec. "My words came out wrong...I'd never ask you to do something like that. Especially not after Ben."

Max froze. She had never told Logan the full extent of how Ben had died...she had been thinking the same thing in the woods but somehow it sounded different when his voice said it. Wrong. She leveled him with a glare, her eyes rimmed red and still watery.

"No. I wouldn't." She choked back another onslaught of tears that threatened to fall. "I wouldn't leave him, but it's not because of Ben. It's not because he looks like Ben, it was because he's ALEC." She said, confirming out loud what she had been thinking earlier and putting an emphasis on Alec's name. The name she'd given him.

If she knew then how much Alec would grow on her, would she have named him that? If he hadn't walked into her cell that day, full of self-arrogance with his sharp tongue, would he have named himself instead? Or would another of the escapees have done the job for her? Could she look at him the same if his name was Henry or Tyler?

No, Alec suited him. She closed her eyes. She couldn't picture him as anything else. Not Ben. Not even Dick. Just Alec.

What if he hadn't been assigned to her as a breeding partner that fateful day? If some other transgenic male had waltzed into her cell that day, would she have named him Alec instead?

No. Alec didn't fit anyone but Alec. She couldn't imagine it any other way. She couldn't imagine how her life would be right now if she had never met the arrogant X5 and she found herself bitterly thanking Manticore. The only fond memory, the only good thing that had ever come out of that miserable place existing was bringing Alec into her life. Although at the time she thought Manticore had reached an all time low and hated both him and the whole breeding idea, if she could go back in time she wouldn't change a thing.

"I know, I just -" Logan was still talking in that hushed, calmed tone and Max found she couldn't take it anymore. She was going to ask or wait for him to move out of her way so she scooted her body across the backseat, barely registering Alec's blood underneath her, staining her pants as she moved across it and out the other side.

Persistent Logan was on the other side of the car in a heartbeat. Damn him, he must be wearing his exo-skeleton. He held up his hands in surrender, stepping in front of her as she tried to move past him.

"Move Logan, I don't want to accidently touch you." Her voice dripped with a little venom but she didn't care. It had been too long since they whisked Alec into the building and the blood on her hands was a painful reminder that she needed to check on him.

She made to move to his left and he slid in front of her. She made to the right and he slid into her pathway once again, blocking her escape and causing her to give him a famous pissed-off-X5-female glare. She had feline DNA after all and right now she was a cat that just wanted to be left alone but its owner kept ticking its tummy trying to get it to play. If he kept this up he was going to end up with some claw marks.

"Move." She repeated.

"No. I need to talk to you Max." He slid into her direction to block her once again and she surged forward anyways, causing him to quickly step back at the last second to avoid being touched.

"Later." she ignored him as she quickly side stepped each of his advances until they were inside the building. Logan, refusing to be ignored, toke a slightly more drastic and creative measure to get her undivided attention by grabbed a pole that was lying in debris outside the building and held it in front of her, blocking her path.

Max glared at him. She could easily break his wrist if she twisted that pole away from him but she restrained herself. Barely.

"This isn't funny Logan, I need to go and make sure Alec is ok!" She raised her voice, yelling at him, shaking with what she didn't know was rage at Logan or fear for Alec's life at the moment.

"Max, please..." He lifted his eyebrows, pleading with her with his eyes. The distraught tone in her voice made her take a deep breath.

"Fine. Talk. But make it quick." She demanded.

Logan gaped for second, his mouth moving without words coming out before he found himself able to put what was running through his mind into sentences.

"I, there's no quick way to say this Max. I'm just, I still love you."

End chapter 2


	3. Smoke On The Water

Chapter 3: Smoke on the Water

"I, there's no quick way to say this Max. I'm just... I still love you." Logan's blue eyes sunk into her own chocolate ones in a kicked puppy expression and she felt her breath catch in her throat, her heartbeat quicken at his sudden declaration.

"Logan..." Her voice quieted from the internal screaming she had been ready to unleash. "We talked about this...we were never really in love."

"No! I don't believe that!" When Max started to shake her head he continued before she had a chance to interrupt him. "I wanted to believe that because everything was so frustrating! You're so gorgeous, and smart, and strong, and independent, and...And everything I've ever wanted in a woman. You were the perfect girl and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you but if I touched you I'd DIE. And I was selfish and wrong to choose life over you..." He toke a step forward towards Max and she toke two steps backwards away from him.

"Logan. Don't do this." She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's not selfish to choose to live. I'd never be able to forgive myself if it was my fault you died. Don't do this."

"I can't not do this Max...I tried. I tried to move on, I tried to get you to move on thinking that it'd be easier if I saw you with someone else, happy without me...but you haven't found anyone else either! That has to be a sign that we're meant to find the cure to this damn virus and be together!" He argued trying to convince the brunette woman in front of him.

"What about Asha?" She asked quietly.

"What about her?" And Max found herself feeling sorry for the girl who so obviously had fallen in love and admired Logan. Logan; who spat out that question with such a harsh tone that clearly said he didn't think anything of her. When Max looked down to avert her eyes from him, he toke a deep breath and kept up his argument.

"Look, Max...I can't do this anymore. I thought I could, but...I -when you called me and said you needed help...you sounded so pained and hurt. I thought you were the one wounded and it almost killed me. I realized that moment that I couldn't live without you. I thought I lost you once...I can't do that again. Please Max...I can't."

She thought over his words...part of her ached to accept Logan's feelings and return them. But when he told her how hurt she sounded on the phone...she knew had been hurting. Not physically. That pain in her voice came from her heart breaking due to fact that she may have realized too late who the man she was truly in love with was; and he laid bleeding in her arms.

She hated hurting Logan; she hated herself for what she knew she had to do right after he had put all his emotions on his sleeve and his heart on the line. But she had finally moved forward. She couldn't take a step backwards. Why did everything just seem to pile onto her shoulders today? Paging Murphy's Law, clean-up on isle 452.

"I'm sorry..." She mumbled quietly. She toke hold of the pole he was holding in front of her and used it to push Logan back against the wall, safely out of her way.

"You're sorry?" He scoffed. "Is that supposed to be your way of rejecting me?"

"I can't get into this with you right now Logan. I have to go make sure Alec is ok." She kept her eyes trained ahead of her, locked on her destination but she could still hear Logan's footsteps behind her.

"Aw Geez Max!" He snapped. "Is Alec all you ever think about? Is...Is HE why you're rejecting me?"

She closed her eyes and refused to say what was running through her mind, screaming yes, that was exactly why. Because Logan had already had his chance and given up on her and Alec hadn't. But she was too scared too say anything. Scared that it would be the dynamite that made Logan explode. Scared that Alec would find out about her feelings for him. What if he didn't feel the same way? He'd never given her any indication that she meant anymore to him than any other female that he wanted to get into the pants of. Or any of the other Jam Pony co-workers that he joked around with day-to-day. So she kept it bottled up inside and told him the only other thing that was on her mind.

"I have. To make sure. He's ok." She growled out through clenched teeth, her anger mounting at Logan's selfish persistence and her hands balling up into fists at her sides.

"What does it matter if you take a few minutes to talk to me? Either he's fine and he's going to stay fine or he's dead and he's going to stay dead! Either way it's not going to matter if you get there now or later!"

Max whirled around on Logan, a venomous fire dancing in her eyes as she almost let her instincts take over and choke him. Sensing the danger he was suddenly in he froze in his steps, staring at Max like a deer in headlights.

"Don't. You. EVER. Say that." It was more than a demand, it was a threat.

Seconds that seemed like forever passed before Max regained control of her body and jerked herself, forcing her legs to continue walking away from him.

She hurried down the dirty halls of the building, the morning sun starting to peek through the cracked and broken windows to the left of her as she made her way to the Medical Ward, where she hoped Alec was still hanging on. Thankfully, Logan finally had the common sense to stand down and he had either stayed where he was or left. Either way he was no longer following her around like a puppy begging for a treat and that was all Max cared about at the moment when it came to Logan Cale.

She silently berated Logan for choosing such a dire time as right now so selfishly proclaim that he was still in love with her. If Alec had slipped away from her life forever while she had been wasting precious moments playing ring-around-the-rosy with Logan she'd beat him to death, she swore she would. If the injuries she inflicted on him didn't kill him, the skin to skin contact her knuckles would make with his face would thanks to the virus.

How dare he. She let a furious tremor run through her body, clenching her fists. How dare he think that Alec might be dead? How dare he think that it didn't matter when she got to him? How could he think that his own romantic feelings meant more than Alec's life? How dare he even tell her he loved her after all everything he'd put her through in the previous months? And even if she did jump all girly at the chance to be with Logan again, big whoop de freakin do. They still couldn't touch. What'd he want from her? A romantic wave? Could you ever wave romantically? Is that what girls called that little finger wiggle they did to guys in the grocery stores? Oh puh-lease.

She felt a little bit bad about the whole situation. Logan had once been closer than a best friend to Max, her only comfort in this world. Her lighthouse. She didn't blame him for giving up. Not one bit, she never had. She cared about him, and always would. She just wanted him to be happy...but she didn't want to be his reason for happiness anymore because he couldn't make her happy in return. Alec was the only one that could do that now. And maybe he had been the only one that could make her happy all along, and she just didn't know it until he sauntered into her life little less than half a year ago and poked and prodded his way past her defenses.

Logan had been her fairy tale prince charming. Noble and valiant, always taking care of her. But Max wasn't the Princess he had been searching for. She was just another girl that he'd mistaken for royalty. A girl that needed to live a real happily-ever-after-live with the annoying neighbor boy that wrestled with her in the woods, treating her like a best friend and an equal rather than something fragile to be locked away in a treasure chest.

But the problem with happily-ever-after stories in the real world was...they usually weren't that happy. At all.

There were few transgenics in the building at this hour. Most of them still lavished in the luxury of being able to sleep in, and most of the X series were outside of the city trying to pass as normal humans with jobs. CeCe and Biggs included were probably just getting to the Jam Pony, and she felt a pang of annoyance at the fact that she'd have to suffer through another one of Normal's rants about her being late and how she should fire her.

Normal. She allowed herself a mental smile. If only he knew Jam Pony had turned into transgenic central right under his nose. He'd shit porcupines for a week. Then again, maybe if he found out his golden boy, Alec the 'Monty Cora', was a transgenic himself he'd change his tune. She couldn't forget that Normal had once fallen so deeply in love with a girl that he'd accepted and gotten over the fact that she had once been a he. And if his vivid gladiator dreams were any indication about how he felt about Alec, she thought that maybe he'd be able to accept him still. Genetic freak or not. Maybe there was hope for Normal in the end when it'd really count.

She found herself outside the doors that had once been white, but were now a dirty graying color with the paint peeling off and the wood rotting underneath. She toke a deep breath and pushed the door open, almost afraid of seeing what was on the other side.

Ripped sheets had been hung in front of the windows to block the glaring light of the sun that was steadily growing higher in the sky. There was a mattress on the floor where Alec was laying and Max let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding as she saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest, much more at ease than back in the car when his breathing had been painfully ragged.

Joshua sat next to the mattress with his back to the wall, a hand on Alec's forehead and his other arm in his lap. A small tube was attached from his arm to Alec's and Max knew without anyone telling her that they were doing the same blood infusion that Joshua had once done for Logan.

She toke a second to truly appreciate Joshua. It was amazing that someone so gentle and caring had come out of Manticore. This was the second time that Joshua had willingly given his own blood without a second thought to help save a friend.

"Hey big fella." She said softly as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

Joshua looked up from where he had been doing the same thing Max had been: watching Alec breathe. There was no surprise on his face, which gave her the impression that he had sensed or smelled her before she had say anything and was just waiting patiently for her to find her own voice.

"Hey little fella."

She crossed the room and sat down on the other side of Alec, grimacing at how pale he still looked, his freckles standing out on his skin while he was laying on the dirty mattress with a dark blue quilt thrown over the lower half of his body. There were thick layers of gauze taped over his side and she was relieved that she couldn't see any blood seeping through the bandages. She put her hand next to Joshua's on Alec's forehead, letting her fingers feel his soft hair and vaguely wondering if Alec would be embarrassed if he knew he was getting this much gentle attention.

"How's the middle fella?" She asked, never taking her eyes off of the mentioned middle fella to their rag-tag three musketeers group. She remembered the day Alec had made a joke about how Joshua and Max always called each other big and little fella and asked if that made him middle fella. It did. The nickname had stuck for him and much as it did for them.

"Middle fella be ok. Joshua gives him blood. Get his strength back." His dog-like lips curled up into a small smile although Max could still hear the whispers of a worried whimper in the back of his throat. Regardless if Joshua knew Alec would be ok, the dog part of him could sense the pain his friend was in and would continue to worry about him until he was back on his feet. Must be the overwhelming loyalty from his dog-genes.

Max nodded her throat too tight to say anything else at the moment and just sat there in silence. The hand that wasn't currently curled in Alec's hair unconsciously moved down to his wrist, to let herself feel the reassuring steady pulse under her fingers. Feeling that blood beating strong through his body was the single greatest feeling she'd felt in months. Hell, it was almost better than sex.

Almost.

When Joshua had given all he could at the moment, he was disconnected from Alec and let himself be lead out of the room to get some food to start re-establishing the blood back into his own system. It left Max alone in the room with Alec and if anyone had any ideas that she should leave, they didn't dare voice them out loud. Something in her eyes, the blunt stubbornness and threat, daring them to suggest such a thing stopped everyone who walked through that door cold in their tracks.

Slowly, less and less people stopped coming by. Some with medical backgrounds to just check on Alec's vitals and stability. Some that was fond of the X5 and just wanted to see with their own eyes that he was ok. And some that annoyed her and were quickly sent back out of the room because they had just wanted to see what had happened out of morbid curiosity.

She resisted the urge to lock the door to stop the assault of unwanted visitors. She just wanted to be left alone with her thoughts. She just wanted Alec to be left alone so he could rest up so he'd be able to open those bright green eyes again. God, she'd never realized she missed the color of someone's eyes so much than when she was unable to see them behind closed eyelids.

Stupid selfish Alec, keeping his pretty eyes to himself. She really wished he'd open them and share them with the world again.

She felt her pager go off and glanced down to see Logan's number. She sighed, realizing that she'd been sitting in this room without moving for over 2 hours. He probably thought that was long enough to wait before continuing the conversation that she really didn't want to have.

She tossed her pager across the room where it skidded across the cracked tile floor until it hit the wall. She wasn't going to let him take her from Alec's side, not after she'd had to fight him to get here in the first place. Sure Logan had Joshua's strong transgenic blood in him now so he could tolerate the toxicity of terminal city if he really wanted to track her down and force the topic back on her. But until he did that - which she knew he would, Logan Cale was one of the most persistent humans she'd ever met - she was going to hide here. Alec's makeshift hospital room had become her sanctuary.

That idea made her feel unreasonably safe. Here, touching Alec, the warm sunlight coming through the sheets that were pretending to be curtains and attempted to send heat into the chilly room. Suddenly much more aware of the room's temperature and Alec's lack of clothing, she pulled the quilt up higher over him, covering his bare chest and tucking it in around the edges. The last thing either of them needed was for Alec to go into another cold-induced seizure. She didn't know if she could take watching that again and she didn't know if his body could handle anything else today.

She left her fingers on the edge of the blanket, curled under and feeling Alec's warm skin underneath. She softly ran her fingers up and across his shoulders, resting in the crook of his neck and let out a contented sigh.

She felt drawn down to Alec, the stressful and exhausting events of the night and lack of sleep over the past few days caught up to her all at once. She let her body slide down next to the mattress, laying her torso on it next to Alec with her hips and legs still on the floor, one arm still curled around his body to caress his neck with her thumb. She let her head rest on his other shoulder and let her eyes slowly drift shut, becoming oblivious to anything but the sound and feel of Alec's beating heart.

Something eased Max out of her slumbering state, calling to her from the edge of unconsciousness. She let a soft mumble escape her lips and turned her head, feeling something soft and warm brush her cheek. Savoring the comforting feeling she got from it, she let her head nuzzle further into it like a kitten. Hell, if her cat DNA was any stronger, she'd be purring by now.

"Is he really that comfortable?"

The voice jerked her out of her peace, shattering her comfort bubble. Her chocolate eyes snapped open as she shot up and twisted herself around to get a look at the person behind her.

Logan.

He leaned in the doorway holding a small black device in his hand, slowly turning it over in his hands with a wistful look on his face.

"I see you, ah...dropped your pager..." He tossed the black object to her with a look on his face that clearly said he knew she hadn't dropped it but he was willing to pretend to spare his own feelings.

Max caught it effortlessly, not even bothering to look at how many times Logan must have paged her before he'd decided to come back up here himself.

"What are you doing here?" There were a million questions she'd wanted to ask like; why couldn't he leave her alone just for one single day, or why he had to pick now to add to the growing pile of emotional distress that had been building up. However, asking why he was here seemed the least offensive and most important at the moment. His prescience in the room felt wrong and made something unknown churn in the pit of the stomach. After all he'd said about Alec, what gave him the right to think he deserved to be in this room with him?

"You weren't answering your pager." He said simply with a shrug.

She let her lips tilt into a small half smile. "I don't answer my pager alot."

"Yea, well..." His eyes wandered around the room, focusing on everywhere but her and the prone figure still lying on the mattress beside her. "I thought maybe something might be wrong."

She gaped at him. Up till now her mind had been too exhausted to be angry but suddenly her brain screamed at her to wake up and remember with full force why she had been so furious the last time she'd seen him, mere hours ago.

"Yea, gee, I wonder if anything is wrong. It couldn't have anything to do with Alec." She let sarcasm and anger take over her tongue as she threw out her words at Logan. "Because I can't possibly be distracted or busy because my- friend...is seriously hurt" She paused and let herself call him a friend, not wanting Logan to be the first person she admitted her feelings about Alec to. "I guess I've just been sitting around just not feeling like rushing to the phone every single time you page me. But whatever you want must be SO important if you felt the need to stalk me all the way here, so go ahead Logan. What do you want now?"

"I'm not stalking you Max, I never left! I've been waiting for you to come back down stairs, trying to give you a minute of space but there's only so long I can stand being ignored or- or forgotten!" His knuckles were turning white from how tightly he was gripping the doorframe to restrain himself from entering the room as his voice rose.

Max looked away, not being able to see the pain she was causing in his eyes. Why couldn't Logan have gone along with what had been HIS plan in the first place and just moved on? Found someone else? She didn't want to ruin their friendship or hurt him like this but there was no way she could turn back on her true feelings now. If only she could figure out how to break it to him without actually breaking him in the process.

"You should have just left..." She almost whispered.

She heard Logan take a few steps into the room as he let out a deep sigh.

"I...I also wanted to make sure he was ok." He sounded almost sad to admit it. "I didn't mean what I said earlier...I just wanted to make you listen to me."

She huffed and crossed her arms across her chest. "Well you got me to listen all right. Super job on that. Next time just hit me with a car or something." It'd be less painful, she thought to herself afterwards.

"Yea, but you didn't hear what I wanted you to. Please Max; just tell me you'll think about what I said."

He had walked around to the foot of the mattress and she averted her gaze from him once again, choosing to stare at a small stain on the blanket instead, letting her fingers absentmindedly pick at the loose threads. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she felt her body growing defensive at him getting so close to Alec. There goes that cat DNA again. Wonder if Logan would leave if she hissed at him...

"There's nothing to think about Logan..." She closed her eyes but she could feel his emotional anguish anyways, flooding the room like water and leaving her feeling like she was drowning in it. "I'm sorry..."

The silence was thick and suffocating. She was afraid that if she moved even the smallest muscle, breathed too deeply, everything around her would shatter like glass. Please just leave, please don't push this, not right now, I can't take this right now... she thought desperately, wishing for the only time in her life that she was from psi-ops so she could mentally force Logan to leave the room, to drop this subject, to go back to Asha and at least give the poor ordinary girl a chance.

After a few tense moments she finally got her wish as she heard his footsteps start to shuffle away and let out a breath, finally daring to open her eyes again. In the doorway she heard him stop and hesitate.

"I'll come back...try to talk to you later when you're not so upset." He wasn't asking, he stated it as a fact, as a promise, as he left the room. Max lashed her fist out at the wall in anger, feeling the paint crack under her hand.

Go figure damn stubborn Logan would think she'd change her mind later. If anything, her mind would be even more made up to keep away from a relationship with him once she could see Alec's grassy colored eyes looking at her once again.

She looked back down at his closed eyelids and let her fingers drift through his short bangs. She wished she could simply lay back down with him, let herself feel that comforting feeling of his warm skin touching hers again and drift off , letting the world around her melt into nothing but him. But thanks to Logan that spell was broken. She had been so exhausted earlier when she let herself give into his pulling aura but now she was wide awake and the idea of resting seemed impossible. And suddenly; cuddling with an unconscious person who may not have mutual feelings seemed wrong.

Instead, she opted for leaning back against the wall and letting her fingers trace paths from his hair, down his ear to his cheek and then dance down his neck, around his collarbone and shoulders, before returning upwards to the starting point.

He felt like he was floating. But then again, isn't that always what they say being unconscious felt like? He remembered being shot, the flare of pain in his abdomen that got worse and sent spikes of unbearable torture coursing through his body as Max desperately pulled him into the woods.

What happened after that? He struggled to regain his buried memories from his foggy mind. It had been cold. Freezing. The forest was a dark blur around him. His limbs had felt weightless, like they weren't even attached to his body before they completely dropped to the ground, unable to move anymore.

He remembered Max. Of course he remembered Max; he wouldn't have been able to forget her even if the world was exploding around them. She had looked sad. And in his pain-numbed state of mind at the moment, he couldn't figure out why. He knew he was on the ground. When did he get on the ground anyways? He knew they were in danger although his brain wasn't currently putting the pieces together and telling him what they were running from. Why was she with him on the ground instead of getting to safety when they were in danger?

Her beautiful doe-like eyes and auburn hair falling in cascades over her shoulders under the moonlight was the last thing he remembered. Had it been snowing? He couldn't remember, but it had been so cold and he seemed to recall small spots of white in his vision but that could have been from the blood loss.

He remembered the darkness on the edge of his vision, the buzzing in his ears that was a tell-tale sign of him about to pass out and he remembered every inch of her tanned porcelain face perfectly as her round lips moved, whispering words he couldn't hear.

He remembered being glad that she would be the last thing he'd see before he left this world as he vaguely wondered if transgenics could even go to heaven. Wait, was he dying?

But now he felt warm, and as the floating sensation faded away his mind began to pick out several other feelings.

The first was that there was something uncomfortable poking into his leg. He tried to adjust himself but found that his limbs were too heavy to move and quickly gave up after the few seconds of effort started to exhaust him again. The second was that steady, throbbing pain from the bullet wound in his side telling him that he was somehow still alive.

And the third was a slight tickle that kept running up and down his face and neck, as if he was laying in a meadow and the wind was brushing the long grass over his body. But if he could tell from the smells surrounding him, he wasn't anywhere near a meadow. It smelled like Terminal City. He made a small noise in the back of his throat to vocalize disgust for the smell and felt the motion going softly through his hair come to a sudden halt.

"Alec?"

He could hear muffled as if he were underwater but he recognized Max's voice, he'd always recognize Max's voice. He tried to answer her, willing his vocal chords to make sound but nothing came out.

"Alec?"

This time he could hear the worry lacing her voice along with another emotion...what was it? Concern? Hope? He tried harder to answer her but to no avail. He started to feel light-headed again and let his head roll into her touch, wanting her to know he was there before he lost his fight with the darkness consuming his thoughts once again.

The cold, weightless feeling had taken over his body again but he still felt warm inside. Max was here with him and that was all that mattered. That's all that had ever mattered. She was the only reason he stayed in Seattle after the destruction of Manticore even though the city held so many painful memories for him. He'd wanted to build new, happier memories in this city with Max.

Now if only he could wake up so he could tease her about watching him while he slept. Every time he taunted and argued with her, she let her true emotions show and told him exactly how she felt about whichever situation was in front of them instead of throwing him the lies she told everyone else to cover up her feelings. He liked that. He liked knowing the real Max and what she was really thinking even if it ended with him getting his ego bruised. Plus, who could deny how sexy she was when she was angry?

And sometimes if he poked and prodded her enough, she'd slip up, and show him small hints that she didn't hate him as much as she told everyone she did. He was sure she didn't even see them herself. And that was fine with him. He knew she was frustrated over Logan and the whole virus situation and if annoying her meant giving her angers an outlet to vent before she spontaneous combusted from pent up stress; he'd take slap-upside the head any day.

He'd felt partially guilty about the whole thing. At first he'd just had his pride hurt after she quickly refused to 'mate' with him at Manticore. Who the hell did this chick think she was? She was lucky to be paired with him. If anything he should be the one disgusted to have to touch her after she'd been rolling around in who-knows-what in the outside world.

But her fiery personality had gotten to him. She was like an addiction pulling him in and he couldn't help but latch on for the ride. When she had named him she had unknowingly shown him more compassion than he'd ever received from anyone in Manticore, even if she had chosen the name out of spite.

At first he'd thought that getting rid of Logan would get rid of the problem she seemed to have with sleeping with him. No Logan = sex with Max. Right? Apparently not. He'd put up his sarcastic devil-may-care attitude when he'd followed her to the penthouse that night but he could barely mask the guilt he felt inside, after he'd looked into her eyes and seen the pain and despair he was causing her. He was torn. He wanted to continue with the plan, kill Logan, and get him out of the way. But part of him wanted to escape and run back to Manticore, get the cure for her so she could be happy.

And then after all that, she'd gotten so close to getting the cure, and he'd ruined it all. And to think, he hadn't even meant to. Why did his life always seem to end up so backwards? When he wanted Logan to die, he lived. When he wanted to help Max to find the cure, he lost their only chance. How seriously screwed was he?

Looking back on it, now he was glad Joshua hadn't had a bar code. He hadn't had a problem with killing him and taking a chunk of his neck back then, but if his plans had succeeded he'd be missing someone who had grown to be his best friend right now. But when he had looked at Max that night and known it'd be her life or his...he'd chose hers. He'd slammed that knife down in the ground, knowing that it meant he had nothing left but to wait for his timer to go off; signaling his death. How was he supposed to have known that she would have traded her chance for the cure to return the favor of sparing his life by paying that doctor to remove the explosive? Not that he minded, despite the hurtful words she'd thrown at him that night, he was relieved to still be breathing. Fate seemed to have given him a second chance at life. A second chance to be with Max. Maybe he had been looking too far into it, but that night, it seemed like destiny had chosen him over Logan for Max. And who was he to deny his destiny?

And then over the months he'd tried to help her track down the cure. He'd grown closer to her and done everything he could to get her attention, to get her to look at him, even if he ended up with a headache afterwards. He was ok with being her punching bag. After all, punching bags got alot of attention and he practically lived off her attention. She was like a drug to him, his sun, his air and he needed to hear her voice everyday, needed her dark brown eyes to look at him, see him, or it felt like he would die.

When Logan suggested giving up Alec had almost thrown a party. He'd of course suggested throwing a party to cheer Max up, but that had left him with a few bruises on his arms and shoulders from both Max and Original Cindy. He'd still celebrated that night by himself on top of Brain's old apartment with a good, stolen, bottle of whiskey though.

She slowly surrendered. He could see it in the way she held herself, her actions, the tone in her voice and the way the light came back into her eyes that she had started to get over Logan and on with her life. But even though everyday he told himself, 'today's the day', he remained nothing but a friend by her side. Because all she needed right now was a friend, not another complication in love.

But that woman liked him, he knew she did. He just had to wait for her to figure it out for herself.

Maybe when he woke up...

End Chapter 3

Quick question up for debate: In the 2nd season they never hinted or showed Alec needing the pills for the seizures so I assumed they found a way to fix the X5's that had remained at Manticore. But you know Manticore; all their 'fixes' have holes and I doubt the seizures could easily be cured so I came up with the idea that they're only triggered when the body gets too cold. Since low temperatures make the body shiver anyways, it seemed realistic that it'd lower the immunity to it and magnify it. Does anyone know any differently, or does the cause for Alec's seizures seem plausible?


	4. Slow Burn

Chapter 4: Slow Burn

Max's heart skipped a beat as her hand froze in its trail it was making through Alec's soft, dirty blonde hair. A quiet, strained sound had broken the silence of the room and she was positive it had come from him. After all, he was the only other one in the room and she certainly hadn't been making any noises.

"Alec?" Her voice sounded loud to her own ears and she forced herself to breathe calmly. Alec remained still on the mattress without so much as a twitch and she felt some of the relief and hope start to fade away.

"Alec?" She asked again, trying to not sound desperate or hopeful but it came out both anyways.

Still no movements from the fellow transgenic and she let her head fall back against the wall with a thud. Maybe she had been hoping so hard that he'd wake up that she was starting to hear things. Or it was a possibility that it had just been a strange noise made by the wind if it had found a crack in the window to slip through while it breezed by.

Then time stood still as Alec let his head fall towards her, softly nuzzling into the palm of her hand. She quickly blinked away the tears that threatened to form, refusing to let Alec wake up to seeing her cry. She'd never hear the end of it.

"It's ok Alec...I'm here." She whispered and placed her other hand on his cheek, stroking the side of his face over his freckles with her thumb to let him know he wasn't alone. "I'm right here..." She repeated more to herself than him this time. Right here where she belonged.

She almost screamed as the unmistakable sound of her pager went off and she'd never had such a strong urge to smash something into teeny tiny pieces. Her brown eyes glared at it on the floor beside her when she noticed that it was Jam Pony and not Logan calling.

Great...time to deal with Normal. At least with Alec out of work today too she could probably get off with the truth. Well, the half-truth at least. That Alec had been hurt and she was taking care of him. Normal didn't need to know the details of how Alec had been hurt, nor where they were currently, but she'd bet money that he'd be so worried about his golden boy that she'd get a rare get-out-of-jail-free card for the day.

She reluctantly pulled her hand out from under Alec's head, unsure if she was relieved that she didn't wake him from his much needed rest, or disappointed that he didn't stir at the absence of her touch. Running her other hand down the side of his face one last time, she slowly stood, her legs cramping slightly from sitting on the floor for so long and made her way into the hallway to find a pay phone.

Pushing the coins into the machine that she was glad still worked she barely had to wait for the phone to ring before it was picked up on the other end by a friendly voice.

"Jam Pony. Original Cindy here."

"Hey OC." Max allowed herself to smile at her friend's voice, grateful for someone who wasn't always looking for new ways to complicate her life to be on the other end.

"Hey Boo. Where you at? Ya know that there are only so many excuses in Sketch's book before he starts trying to tell Normal ya were abducted by aliens. And ya boy ain't here neither."

"Yea...yea I know OC. Alec's here. With me. In Terminal City. I'm on my way, sorry you had to cover for me...just do me a favor and get Sketchy to stop trying to help." She smiled at Original's Cindy small laugh on the other end.

"I hear that. But what're you doin in Terminal City? Everythin aight?"

There was a long pause before Max finally found the strength in her to answer, "No. But everything will be. It'll be fine."

There was almost a longer pause before OC answered her voice low and understanding.

"Aight Boo. Just tell me when you get here."

Max made a noise that may have sounded like an agreement before she hung up the phone and sighed, leaning forward so her forehead rested on the phones rusted metal. Thank Manticore for giving all the transgenics such a high immune system and quick healing or everyone in Terminal City would probably have tetanus from all the old rusted junk lying around.

"Little fella alright?" Joshua's low voice came from beside her and Max straightened up, offering him a smile even though it hurt the muscles in her face to work her lips into false happiness.

"Yea Big fella, I'm ok. I've just got to go to work..." She trailed off, letting her eyes wander down the hallway to Alec's door.

Joshua followed her gaze.

"It ok. Joshua look after Alec while Max gone. And Max get back soon. Ok?"

Max gave him a genuine smile this time. "I know, I know you'll take good care of him." She wrapped her arms around the tall trans-human's waist, savoring the comfort of the hug and suddenly aching to see Original Cindy. "And I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise. You just keep Alec here until then."

Joshua hugged her back and nodded vigorously, his long wavy hair bouncing wildly. She wouldn't have wanted anyone else to look after Alec while she was gone, and she was relieved to know he wouldn't to be alone while she was at work. There was no one in Terminal City she trusted more than Joshua and she knew the same went for Alec. While there had been tension between the two of them when they first met, the X5 and the trans-human made quick amends and even quicker friends somehow.

She had found it irritating at first. She enjoyed her visits with Joshua and when Alec started invading her personal bubble at his house all she'd wanted to do was shove him right back out the door. But she'd unknowingly gotten used to his constant presence and made the house seem empty when he wasn't around. Even as busy as she'd get on some days at Jam Pony, walking into that place just didn't feel the same if he wasn't there.

It was the feeling she got now as she pushed her bike through the door and scanned the crowd between the lockers for her best friend's unruly mop of black hair.

"Well well well, look who finally decided to drag herself into work today. So nice of you to decide we were worth your time. And how were the aliens?"

Max rolled her eyes and silently cursed Sketchy. Original Cindy apparently hadn't been kidding when she said that was the last excuse her half-baked friend had left to use for her and while she appreciated that he cared enough to try and help, sometimes it was best if he just didn't bother.

She spun around to face Normal, who had his usual clipboard in front of him and dark rimmed glasses under a raised eyebrow while he waited for her answer.

"Look Norm, I don't know anything about aliens but I had an emergency I had to take care of."

"An emergency? Of the extra-terrestrial kind? Another heart transplant or therapist appointment?" He folded his arms across his clipboard and hugged it tightly to his chest disapprovingly. Some days Max wanted to hide that damned thing and see if his life would fall apart without it since she never once saw him put it down in all the time she'd worked here. And some days, like today, she wanted to grab it and break it upside his head. She knew he was a good guy deep down but he was seriously working her last nerve.

"No. I'm fine." She swallowed the lump down her throat forcing her to keep her game face in front of her boss. He wasn't one of the few that were allowed to see her soft side. "It was Alec. I know you didn't not notice your golden boy is absent."

Normal let his posture drop slightly and she knew she'd hit her mark.

"Alec? Is he ok? What happened?" His eyes scanned the room even though they both knew he wasn't there, but as if he was hoping the energetic youth would pop out from behind a bike and him it was all a joke.

"He's...he'll be fine. He's recovering. He was just...in an accident on his motorcycle." She'd have to give Alec a head's up next time she saw him about her story because she was pretty sure Normal wouldn't go for 'Oh, he got shot while we were stealing camera footage for S1W and Eyes Only. But no biggie 'cause he's one of those transgenics you hate.'

"I always hated those motorcycles..." Normal was shaking his head. "More danger than they're worth. Should still use good, old, reliable bicycles."

"Yea whatever." Max rolled her eyes as Normal trailed off about the good old days and turned away, seeing Original Cindy out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey missy miss! How about delivering a package here?" Normal shouted at her retreating back.

"In a min." She hollered back and slung her backpack off in front of her locker as Original Cindy walked over to lean against the wall opposite of her.

"Ok boo, so spill. Why ain't your boy with you and what happened last night after you bounced out of Crash?"

Max was always strangely touched by the way Original Cindy always called Alec 'her boy'. She stopped trying to argue with OC a long time ago since there was no winning against her backstreet logic but she had always secretly enjoyed the feeling it gave her to think of Alec as 'hers'. At first she had thought it was merely an ownership thing. After all, she was the one that named Alec. It made him kind of like her pet. Her obnoxious pet ferret that never stayed still and was constantly bouncing around stealing shiny objects.

It may have taken Max too long to figure it out, but maybe her best friend had seen all along which man in Max's life she really had feelings for all along. Sometimes she seriously wondered if Original Cindy was psychic.

"Alec and I went on this...favor for Logan last night." She ignored the way OC rolled her eyes at Logan's name. "Well, for the S1W. They got themselves caught on camera and needed us to get the footage back."

"Yea I was there for that part of tha conversation. Go on."

"Well...it was easy. Really easy. Practically no guards, bad outside security, the window was already busted open for us...we thought we were in the clear. But...one of the guards shot Alec through the fence..."

"Oh honey..." OC's eyes softened and her voice toke on a comforting, almost mother-like tone to it but Max waved her off. She needed to get this all out at once or she wouldn't be able to tell the whole thing. She had tried so hard to block out the memory of Alec falling, of his blood on her hands and him growing cold in her arms and now it was all coming rushing back at once and threatening to overwhelm her.

"It's ok. It's ok...now. We ran as far as we could but we couldn't make it back to the bikes and he collapsed...he spent too long in the cold and it, well, remember my seizures?" OC closed her eyes and nodded, remembering the time her and Kendra had flushed Max's pills down the toilet and she had to go rescue her girl from prison. It was a day she'd never forget, seeing Max; her best friend who was so super strong all the time so weak and vulnerable. Max nodded too. "Yea...he had one...but Joshua and Logan came and got us and...It's fine now. It's all fine. It'll be fine." She kept repeating that it was going to be fine, trying to convince herself more than Original Cindy when she felt the other girl's arms wrap around her.

She loved the way Original Cindy could always seem to make everything better. She could talk to her about anything and she always had a perfect, honest answer waiting.

Max looked up at her friend hesitantly, her question on the tip of the tongue as their eyes locked.

"OC...What do you think of Logan?"

OC leaned back and looked at Max for a second as if she had sprouted wings. "Home girl, you really want me to answer that?"

"Yea. I do." It was something she had never asked her before, not even when Logan had been a bigger part of her life and now she felt guilty that she had never gotten her opinion on the man before she started jumping through his hoops.

"Well..." OC clicked her tongue as if she was trying to think of a nice way to put her thoughts. "If ya ask Original Cindy, which ya did, he's just a spoiled rich kid with too much free time and a superhero complex. Neva did sit right with me how he always asked you all these dangerous favors. And now he's gettin Alec involved? Pish. His legs work again. He can go do it himself since he's the one always stirring up trouble in the first place." She pursed her lips together and looked off to the side.

Max just nodded and leaned back against the locker, hating how uncharacteristically meek this conversation was making her.

"Do you think he made me happy?"

OC furrowed her brows and looked at Max, really looked at her like she was looking into her soul. "Do YOU think he made ya happy?"

Max ran one hand through her long hair and returned OC's look. "Just answer the question. From an outsider's view...Did I? Did I look like I was happy when I was around him?"

"Ya looked stress Boo." OC put her hands on her hips. "You were eitha exhausted from running around for him, running to a phone to run around for him 'cause he paged ya, or stressed out waiting fo him to page ya 'bout somethin. I'd never seen ya so on edge all the time."

"Okay..." Max sighed, her closest friend had just confirmed what she'd been thinking all along. She doubted she was ever in love with Logan. Even in the beginning. But what had she been expecting? If her home girl had told her that yes, she had seemed happy and it looked like her and Logan had some great chemistry together, would she have given him a second chance? It was something to think about at least. Only one other thing to factor in...

"What about Alec? Do I seem happy with him?"

Original Cindy laughed. "With him? Hell no. You get so bent out of shape fighting with him that it's all Original Cindy got to not drag him away from ya by his bar-coded neck." Max felt her heart sink slightly when OC put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to make eye-contact once again. "But you wanna know why Original Cindy don't roll with that? Cause as soon as that boy leaves, you should see the look in ya eyes. The look that ain't there right now while I'm lookin at ya. 'Cause he ain't here."

"What look would that be?" Max was almost afraid to ask.

"Some fella once said that eyes were the windows to the soul. Well, that may be true n all, but if it is, Alec is the only one that can open your soul windows. Original Cindy ain't sure if he makes you what you'd call happy...but he takes the weight off your shoulders and sure as hell don't make you unhappy. And that's sayin alot more than what I can say for Logan boy, since he's the one who puts that weight on ya in the first place."

Max broke the eye contact to look down and let her lips twist into a smile. Original Cindy's words put butterflies in her stomach. Alec could provoke her in ways that no one else could. While she found most of it annoying and tiring she never toke a second to realize that she always felt better afterwards. She'd had to take fewer rides on her precious Ninja to clear her head since she'd met him. And where she used to sit on the space needle almost every single night, now she found herself scarce of what was once her favorite place to think.

With White breathing down everyone's necks worse than Lydecker ever did and all the trans-chaos out there she should be feeling worse than she ever had over the years. But just when shit really hit the fan and came raining down on her, she found the strength to stand stronger than ever before and face what came at her.

And the little voice inside her head didn't even need to tell her why. Because over the years she'd been facing everything alone. And now she had Alec standing by her side through thick and thin. However, this realization brought the painful thought afterwards...why? After the way she'd always treated him, yelling horrible things at him, hitting him, getting him shot on multiple occasions, dragging him all over the city on Eyes only errands even though he didn't owe Logan anything and probably didn't even like the guy...why did he remain by her side?

Original Cindy however, wasn't going to let her ponder her thoughts inside of her own head.

"So Boo, are you going to tell Original Cindy why ya wanted the psych evaluation or what?" She had her arms crossed and a look that said 'best fess up', and Max knew better than to try and smooth talk one of the masters of word art. Even if Max was no where near ready for this conversation, there was no going back now after she had already brought OC this far into it and gotten her interested.

"Logan told me he still loved me." Max let the words tumble out of her mouth as she let her head fall backwards to bang on the locker behind her. "Told me he never stopped loving me and wanted to try finding the cure again."

"Want that bitch to get smacked up Original Cindy style? Or you wanna do it yoself so you'll have the pleasure of killing his white butt at the same time?"

Max smiled, she had almost forgotten that OC had a fire of her own when provoked and found it vaguely humorous that she had been thinking almost the same thing only hours ago after Logan had first thrown this new curveball at her.

"I mean who the hell does he think he is?" OC continued into almost a rant. "Treatin ya like crap, stressin ya out, then givin up when it gets too hard for him...now he wants to go back to the old ball game? Gurl, please tell Original Cindy that you told him you were playing a new game and he ain't in this round."

"Didn't even give him the address of the playing field." She reached out and bumped her fist with OC. "Told him I'd talk to him about it later but...I don't know what to tell him. I don't want to hurt him or loose him as a friend but I'll probably do both if I turn down his feelings."

"Well, Original Cindy thinks its computer boy's turn for a lil hurtin after what he put ya through. If he doesn't stick around as a friend afterwards, screw him. Ya don't need him. You stuck by him after he told ya he was giving up and if he doesn't do the same- he's a hypocrite and ya don't need that kinda trash in ya life."

Suddenly Max felt like there was a weight lifted off of her. OC was right. Logan had been the one to throw everything away and now he had to deal with the consequences of his actions. There was no going back. Max wasn't going to play jump rope with his emotions, running back and forth on whatever whim was more convenient for him at the time. After he had cut everything off she had still hung around with him, talked to him, been there for him and ran around doing things for eyes only and S1W. If he couldn't do the same for her now that she was following his original example, she probably was better off without him.

"So now that ya heads all clear, does this mean your finally goin to come over to the all girls team?" OC threw her a playful wink that Max rolled her eyes at.

"Sorry but no. This girl's all for the guys. You know that's not going to change."

"Even though ya finally realizin most of them are wastes of time?"

"Not all of them..." Max started to twirl a finger around her hair and mentally slapped herself, jerking her hand away when she realized what she was doing. What had gotten into her to make her act all girly and bubbly? That was weird...mental note to never ever allow herself to do that again.

Original Cindy had noticed the un-Max behavior though. "You're not in heat are ya?"

"No." She shoved her hands into her pockets to stop herself from fiddling with things. "Just got...alot on my mind."

"A-L-O-T? Or A-L-E-C?" OC smirked and bumped her shoulder to Max's as she leaned down to get her bag off the floor. "But we'd best bounce on some runs before Normal ova there has a hernia. Think ya can handle it Boo?"

Max leaned down and picked up her own back.

"Please. I can always handle it."

Max hadn't been able to shake the certain 6 foot dirty blonde with green eyes out of her mind all day. It hadn't helped of course that they were working short-staffed today because the mentioned blondie had been absent, but he was constantly on her mind regardless. Talking to Original Cindy had helped, but now instead of going back and forth between thinking about what the make out of her feelings for Alec, and trying to decide what to do about Logan, it was 24/7 transgenic station in her mind.

Back at Manticore when she had been young they had tried to teach them to be emotionless. They were super-enhanced. They were stronger, faster, smarter, and even better looking than humans. They were better than humans because they weren't humans. Not to the scientists that created them anyways. They had wanted them to be nothing more than robotic androids, perfect soldiers.

What they hadn't counted on - was that they were just as human as the ones they lived among now. Even the transhumans that had more animalistic appearances like Joshua and Mole. They breathed, they bled, and most importantly: they loved. Manticore had tried to train the emotions out of them and failed. Max knew that more than ever now.

Even the Alec, who had lived under Manticore's dictatorship for 20 years, was still able to love. Max had witnessed it herself as he openly cried, clinging to the body of a comatose girl he once cared for. Now the only question was if he was still capable of such emotions after his first love had been so cruelly snatched from him and he had been tortured in Psi-Ops as medication for his broken heart, leaving him as the broken remains of the soldier he had once been.

He seemed carefree and energetic as ever, but Max knew better than that, she knew it was a mask he put onto hide his feelings from being crushed like that ever again. She saw the look in his eyes whenever he thought he was alone.

She only hoped that she could pull him out of the darkness that Rachel's death had left him in and bring him back into the light. She wanted to see what a genuine Alec McDowell smile looked like and not once that was forged for the comfort of those around him.

Pull him - hell, she'd drag him kicking and screaming if she had to. And knowing their relationship - it just may happen that way. She grinned to herself mentally picturing dragging a bound Alec out of a dark room and into the warm sunshine of a different room. Then she imagined it being her room and shoving Alec down on the bed. His strong arms still tied together while she straddled him as a restraint. Running her hands under his t-shirt to feel his muscles underneath. Leaning close to him and letting her tongue trace a trail from his neck to his collar bone and the bittersweet taste of his skin on her lips...

Max shook her head. Now was defiantly not the time for those kinds of thoughts.

She peddled faster through the streets towards Terminal City. She had been half tempted to call ahead and see if Alec woke up but she had hadn't wanted to get her hopes up while that phone ringed in case he was still out. And if she knew he was awake she'd probably get herself hurt reckless driving just trying to get there as fast as she could.

Speaking of phones, she was relieved that her pager had stayed silent the rest of the day, giving the impression that Logan was actually going to give her the space she needed at the moment. For someone who was apparently a computer genius, it toke alot for him to get even the smallest hint sometimes. Especially since earlier she hadn't even been hinting, she'd been out right telling- yelling at him to leave her alone.

She really needed to stop speaking too soon.

As she pushed open the door to Alec's make-shift hospital room 3 things caught her attention right away.

First was the awful smell of paint as Joshua was clearly painting a mural on the far right wall near the windows that were open, but not doing much to clear the strong scent.

Second, was that Logan was standing inside the room, arms crossed and back straight in a stance that screamed defiance.

Third, most thankfully, was Alec sitting up with his back propped against the thin pillow as he leaned against the wall with his own arms crossed and his green eyes wide open in a look that Max had only seen before once. In the eyes of an alpha wolf before it had taken down an opponent that was challenging its rank.

"Oh, Max. Glad your here." Logan blinked as if he was surprised to see her and started towards her but stopped, raising his hands in surrender as she threw him a look that could probably catch him on fire.

"Don't" She started.

"Yeah Maxie, glad your here. Buddy here has some questions." It was funny how all day she'd missed Alec's voice so badly but now all she wanted him to do what shut back up and stop rolling those gorgeous eyes at her.

She ignored him and rounded on Logan.

"Why are you here? Again?" She hissed out.

"The disks Max. Did you finish the mission and get the camera footage?" He huffed as if it was the most obvious answer in the world and she was the moron for not filling in the blanks sooner.

She clenched her hands into fists and stalked to the corner of the room where her jacket from last night had been thrown and ignored the stale metallic scent covering it as she fished the security disks out of her pocket and hurled them at Logan.

"There. YES we finished your stupid mission. Next time tell Asha and her kids to not get caught so we don't have to run around cleaning up YOUR messes. And don't worry; I'm pretty sure Alec's blood ruined them for you."

"Your welcome." Alec threw them both a grin as Max and Alec turned to glare at the X5 male at the same time.

Logan leaned down to pick up the blood-stained and scratched disks. "What's with you lately Max?"

"What's with me? I just didn't want to risk touching and KILLING you by handing you the stupid disks. Plus I've had enough of Alec's blood on my hands in the past 24 hours to last my a life time so you'll excuse me if I don't want to touch them anymore. But you don't seem to think about things like that, do you?"

"I'm not talking about the disks or the virus; I'm talking about your attitude."

"Same attitude I've always had. If you're not used to it by now you're not going to be."

Logan threw up his arms in the air. "Is this your way of pushing me away?"

"Why are you making me out to be the villain in this? Yes, I am pushing you away. But you forget that YOU'RE the one who started this!"

"And I'm trying to end it!"

Their voices rose into yells that caused Joshua to let out a low whine as he fiddled with a paint cap, too distracted by the loud noise and tension in the room to paint.

Alec reached out and patted the trans-human's leg from his spot on the mattress.

"It's ok big fella. It's not your fault mommy and daddy are fighting."

"Shut up!" Logan and Max turned on Alec at the same time, both shouting the same thing.

Max rounded back to Logan, flipping her long hair over her shoulder in her fury.

"Don't you dare tell him to shut up!"

"Oh, I can't tell him to shut up but you can?"

"Personally" Alec didn't take the hint and slid back into their conversation. "I'd prefer it if neither of you told me to shut up."

Max closed her eyes and tapped her foot, resisting the strong urge to yell those same words once again. It wouldn't do her any good to get mad at Alec. It wasn't his fault Logan was being an insufferable ass. He hadn't even been awake when Logan had tried to bring her walls that she'd built around her heart crashing in on themselves with his sudden confessions.

If anything, the main reason she was pissed was because it had been Logan who had been here when Alec woke up. While she had been at work, someone who didn't even appreciate or care about Alec at all had been the first one to see those green eyes open.

She had stayed by his side all night and morning and she had still missed her chance to be there with him when he woke up hurt, confused and needing someone. And now instead of being able to be with him, Logan was once again in her way, spiking her temper and making everyone in the room uncomfortable.

She hadn't been there and she couldn't figure out why that fact was so hard to swallow and get past.

And suddenly, she couldn't be here now either.

Max ignored Logan's protests and turned, leaving the room and slamming the door shut behind her.

Alec groaned and didn't know if it was still all in his head or out loud. That damned floating feeling was back, and with it returned the pain in his side. The flare of a reminder that he'd fucked up the last mission.

A strong acrylic smell assaulted his nose and he groaned again, this time knowing it was out loud as he heard a familiar low voice and the heavy shuffling of large feet.

"Alec?"

Joshua. Yep, that was defiantly Joshua. He opened his eyes, squinting into the sun that the open windows was letting stream into the pale, filthy room but quickly shut them again when the world began to spin and his stomach protested the movement his mind thought was happening.

"Alec awake?"

"Yea." He croaked out and tried to lick his dry, cracked lips. His throat felt raw and horse as if he'd been yelling for hours.

But thank Manticore for Joshua, the trans-human may have difficulty stringing a full sentence together but he seemed to be psychically in-tuned to those he loved with his dog-like affection and loyalty. The heavy footsteps thundered away and then back seconds later as he felt a strong arm under his shoulders, lifting his torso up.

His abdomen screamed in protest and he tensed his muscles, gripping the sides of the mattress as the sudden pain that flashed through his body at the movement. Blinking, he saw that Joshua was only trying to lift him far enough to drink out of a cracked coffee mug he held in the other hand.

He wanted to tell him he was fine and could do it on his own but his body refused to let his mind say those words. It clawed at him, begging for the comfort, and knowing that if Joshua let go he'd probably fall right back down so he let the dog boy lift the cup to his lips and swallowed the stale water inside.

Now that the world was staying still, he let his gaze wander over to the wall where Joshua had piled all his foul smelling paints against the wall and was covering it with large streaks of blues and yellows, splashes of green.

"What're ya up to over there?" He asked, nodding at the wall and Joshua's face lit up in a grin.

"Painting! Painting- so- Alec when- When Alec wake up, Alec has something to look at. Make happy." He motioned to the blurs of color and Alec nodded without answering. He never could figure out Joshua's abstract art and some responses were best without vocal answers.

Joshua's lop-sided grin quickly dropped as he looked past Alec into the doorway and he could almost swear he saw him bear his teeth.

Turning and wincing at the movement, he could see why.

Logan Cale stood in the doorway, his hands shoved into his pockets and blonde hair spiked wild all over the place.

"Hey." He shrugged in what he probably meant as a wave. "Good to see you awake. Max will be... relieved..." he mumbled the past part so low that Alec wouldn't have been able to hear him if he hadn't had transgenic super hearing.

He gave him a half-assed grin all the same. "So where is our little Maxie then?" He tried to remain nonchalant instead of getting up and shaking the human until he told him where she was. Last he remembered she had been safe. But last he remembered she had stayed behind on the ground with him while he knew they were being chased by guards...he felt something cold clutch his gut. But since he was here safe, that meant Max was safe too, right? She had to be. She just had to be. He couldn't bring himself to think of any other possibility.

"At work. And pissed."

"Aw, well that's our Maxie-"

"Stop calling her that." Logan cut him off.

"Come on man, don't be jealous you're not in the three musketeers, it's always been like that. Joshua is big fella, Max is little and-"

"No." Logan cut him off again and Alec was starting to feel frustration poke at him at not being able to get a full sentence out around this man. He was trying to play nice but Logan sure knew how to press a guy's buttons. And if this guy thought Alec was an elevator he could easily take a ride on he should have taken the stairs because if he kept jamming his finger at that little button his cables were going to snap and send them both crashing into the ground.

"That's not what I meant." Logan continued, ignoring the feral look in Alec's eye. "She's not 'our' Max, she's mine. And for the record, that's bullshit if you think it's always been your way because I was here way longer than you."

That cable snapped and Alec jerked up to lunge at Logan but stopped short, letting a gasp of pain escape his lips as his hand flew to his side to clutch the wound that was painfully reminding him it was still there. Damn it, he could have sworn that he healed quicker than this and as Logan turned to look at his sudden movement in alarm and curiosity, as he settled for pushing himself up against the wall to prop his body up with the help of Joshua.

"What're you doing?" Logan asked with suspicion in his tone.

"Just sitting up dude." His tone was casual as if he had really been just sick of laying down instead of about to snap the blonde computer nerd's neck, but there was still a deadly look in his eye that dared Logan to get within arm's reach of him. A look that Logan caught on to and carefully kept his distance as he quickly changed the subject.

"So, uh, about the mission."

Alec rolled his eyes. "What about it?" Last night was the last thing he wanted to talk about right now.

"Did you get the security surveillance disks?"

Alec would have rolled his eyes again if he weren't already staring at the ceiling. "Nah. We decided it'd be more fun if we broke in just to play tag in the hallways and then frolic off so I could get shot."

Logan crossed his arms but was saved from a response as the door opened to reveal  
Max, with a mixture between disgust, bewilderment and relief on her face.

Alec tried to not pay attention to Max and Logan as they bickered. He tried to keep his attention to Joshua's art but it kept drifting back to the brunette transgenic. And hey, who could resist throwing a few remarks out there? How could he ever resist getting her attention on him? Even angry, she had the most beautiful chocolate eyes.

Then as suddenly as she had entered the room, she turned and left, leaving the remaining three each confused on what had just happened.

Logan turned and glared at Alec who returned the feeling with twice the intensity.

"This is your entire fault." He spat out as he turned on heel and left the room after Max.

Leaving Alec right back where he started, on a dirty mattress alone in a room that smelled like acrylic fumes with Joshua.

Great. Just great. He let his head drop back against the wall with a thud and felt Joshua's big hand on his head stroking his hair.

He let a grin sneak onto his face. "Hey now, not that I don't like being petted, but I'm not the one that's half dog and your not my type."

Joshua's lips twitched into a small smile.

"It ok. It not Alec's fault."

He looked down, unsure how to answer because he was unsure what the statement was actually directed at. His fault the mission had been botched even though they got it completed? His fault Max was mad? His fault Logan was fighting? Who knows?

He braced himself and slowly sat up without the support of the wall.

"What's Alec doing?"

"Going to get some damn answers." He responded as he pushed his physical pain to the back of his mind, forcing his body to obey him and gingerly stood up.

There was no way he was just going to wait around here for someone to come back and explain what the fuck just happened.

End Chapter 4


	5. Bullet Proof

Chapter 5: Bullet Proof

Max slowed her pace from storming down the hallways to merely letting her legs drift forward. Robotic like and detached as if she weren't moving her own body. She wrapped her arms around her as if she was cold, or as if she was trying to keep herself together.

What had she been thinking storming off like that? Alec was finally awake. That was supposed to mean everything was going to be ok, right? So why did everything feel so far from ok?

Oh yea. Logan.

She tried to remind herself that he was a good guy but it was getting harder and harder when he kept throwing her up against mental walls at every turn. All she had wanted all day was to see Alec's eyes. To hear his voice. Well she'd gotten what she'd wanted but instead of the sparkling green eyes she longed for, his eyes had been dark and detached. Cold, like he hadn't been in the same room as them as was mentally a million miles away. Instead of the warm touch his voice usually held; it'd been bitter and sarcastic. And now the friendly kind of sarcasm she related to an Alec-only attitude, but a harsh tone that left her feeling empty inside.

Oh yea. That's probably Logan's fault too.

This was ridiculous. She stopped and let her chocolate eyes linger on the cracked and stained walls surrounding her. She'd waited all day to get what she wanted. She'd finally pushed Logan away, hopefully for good this time. She'd let him hold her back for so long she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be off the ropes. She flexed her fingers as if she would see actual coils of rope falling away from her wrists.

There was no reason for her to be running away anymore. She was tired of running. Running from Lydecker and Manticore, running from White and his crazy cult, running from the cops, running from her feelings and now...running from Alec. The last person she wanted to run from. The person she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms, and maybe legs too, around and never let go - the complete opposite of running. And yet, here she was, running. Because Logan had escalated the stress in the room into a full blown fight and there was no way she could face him or Alec who had been dragged into it despite just waking up. Now right now. Maybe not ever.

But she had to. She knew she had to and even though both her mind and her heart were screaming at her to go back to him, and finally tell him everything; her body wouldn't move. She was paralyzed by fear of the idea of putting her heart on the line and opening herself up to be emotionally vulnerable. Fear of permanently loosing the person she had grown so close to by trying to get too close.

What if Alec rejected her? What if she placed her heart in his hands to have him shatter it? With his charisma and looks he could easily get anyone to satisfy him with no strings attached. Why would he want someone so full of angst and anger and over-flowing with issues to tie him down with? Once she'd tell him the truth there would be no turning back. They could never be the same again. And Max didn't think she'd be able to stand it if all she got were cold looks of pity and disdain from someone she used to playfully trade punches and laugh with.

She had once let Alec hold her while she cried. While she'd opened herself up to him for the first time and told him about Ben. In that moment she felt like his warm, strong arms would always be there to keep her safe. If she was the reason he was gone, she'd never be able to forgive herself. Because she pushed him away by trying to pull him too close.

Would he finally let go and let her fall? Alec wasn't like Logan. If Alec dropped her, there'd be no one else to catch her. She'd hit rock bottom and didn't know if she could survive the impact.

No, her mind battled with itself.

One of the first rules they'd learned at Manticore and practiced all they're lives was: look before jumping. Manticore and rules be damned. But maybe it was time to throw caution to the wind and take that jump, regardless if someone was there to catch her. If she fell, she fell. That was what life and freedom was all about, right?

Maybe Alec wouldn't catch her. Maybe she'd fall and break - shatter into pieces. But in time she'd heal, and get back up. She wouldn't let Alec distance himself from her or push her away. If there was one thing Logan had taught her; it was how to be persistent. She might not ever be able to get Alec to return her feelings, but with time maybe she could get her old friend back if she screwed everything up. What was that military term again? FUBAR? Fucked up beyond all reason. That seemed appropriate right about now.

Her body finally complied with her mind's reasoning and let itself be turned around to head back to Alec's room. With the disks and her blow up there was no reason for Logan to remain in the room with an angry X5 alpha male. She hoped anyways.

She led herself back down the hallway and stopped in her tracks once she rounded the corner. Maybe it was a mirage from being the subject of her thoughts for so long... but Alec was there around the corner. Just leaning casually against the wall with his arms crossed across his chest as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"Good morning sunshine" He flashed a quick grin as she approached him.

"Alec, what the hell are you doing out of your room?"

"Just thought I'd enjoy the scenery." He shrugged and she looked around the dimly lit corridor.

"Scenery huh." She raised an eyebrow to emphasize that she didn't believe him.

"Alright, alright, you caught me." He raised his shoulders, keeping his arms tight across his chest and she noticed him flinch involuntarily. A small motion that an ordinary wouldn't have caught. A flicker of pain. "I was sick of lying around smelling Joshua's paint so I wanted to stretch my legs. Heard footsteps so I figured I'd just act casual."

She could believe the part about needing to get away from the paint fumes. For someone with such a keen sense of smell she didn't understand how Joshua could be around them for so long. If it hadn't been for that small flinch of pain she probably would have believed all of it. It would be just like Alec to get all ferrety and need to move after being down for so long, but something about his posture screamed a different story as if it were begging her to see the truth behind his innocent lies.

"So what you mean is...you were being a dumbass, getting up while your injured and when you heard someone coming you opted for...'casually' leaning against a wall so no one would see you struggling." She kept her voice cool and level. She knew that was part of the truth, that Alec would never let anyone see him weak. Now the remaining question was why he was really wandering around.

"Injured? Struggling? Maxie, it's like you don't know me at all." Chocolate eyes continued to stare accusingly at green ones until he sighed in defeat. "Or maybe you know me too well." He chuckled. "Maybe I spend too much time around you."

He didn't know the impact his words had on her or how they felt like a knife slicing through her heart. No. No, no, no. You don't spend too much time around me; please don't stop spending too much time around me. She silently begged. Of course she couldn't say something that desperate and pathetic out loud though.

"Well let's go spend some more time together then." She opted to say out loud and quickly added; "Back in your room. You still need your rest."

He lowered his eyes but hers didn't leave him for a second. She saw the mental preparation flash in his green eyes and his muscles tense to will himself to not show any pain as he pushed himself away from the wall and threw her a cocky grin to try and reassure the both of them that he was fine.

With his arms by his side instead of crossed over his chest Max realized like getting a ton of bricks dumped on her what shirt he was wearing. He'd thrown on what had probably been the only shirt in his room because she hadn't thought to get him clean clothes and apparently no one else did.

The same shirt he'd been wearing that horrible night. She'd avoided looking it ever since she'd heard that gun shot ring out in the night but now it was right in front of her in horrifying clarity of how close she'd actually come to loosing him. Dark reddish brown stained almost the entire right side of the shirt, darker where she could see a small puncture hole in the fabric and lighter as the blood and run down his torso, coating the rest of his body and clothes in his own blood.

She could see stark white through that small bullet hole that reminded her that he was still patched up and recovering. Alive and right in front of her. She forced her nerves under control, fighting to keep her bottom lip from trembling, but she couldn't fight it anymore. Her body and her mind seemed to have different ideas of what to do today and for the second time she found herself doing the opposite of what her tactical trained mind told her to do.

She rushed forward, closing the small gap between them in a second and wrapped her arms around him tight, relishing in hearing his heart beat so close to her and the warmth radiating from his body as blood pumped inside of it. Despite her mind screaming, demanding to know what her body was doing and accusing her of throwing everything away.

She was teetering on the ledge but was she ready to make the jump?

She felt his breath catch in his throat and assuming it was from pain, she quickly loosened her grip around him, but refused to let go entirely, resting her forehead against his shoulder. It had taken so much willpower just to get this far, and it felt so good being this close to him. She didn't want to let go yet. Her fingers gripped his shirt instead and she could feel the fabric on her skin without feeling the firm body underneath it. Alec's body was tense and she could feel her heart breaking at the fact that his arms were firmly stiff by his sides instead of wrapped around her in the same position she was in. That she was so close yet there felt like there were a wall in-between them.

"Max..." He whispered.

She squeezed her eyes shut and kept her head down, refusing to look at him and see the rejection in his eyes. Waiting for the moment he'd step back or gently push her away. Waiting for the moment that he'd not only let her fall, but push her over the edge with his own two hands.

There was a weight on her head as she felt Alec's warm breath ghost over her forehead. He let his body sag slightly, letting his own forehead drop to rest on top of her bowed head. His shoulders lost their tension as he leaned backwards, letting himself fall back against the wall, as if he were too weak to hold himself up any longer.

Max refused to let go of her grip in his shirt and let herself be pulled along the small step back to the wall. What she didn't expect, was for Alec's hands to reach out and wrap his own fingers into her thin black shirt to pull her with him. As if he didn't want her to let go either.

A slight tremor ran through his body that an ordinary human may not have noticed, but her hyped up nerves did as she pressed her palms against his abs to steady him and tried to ignore the warmth that flared up inside of her when she felt his muscles clench under her hands as another shiver passed.

She finally raised her head to look up at him. His eyes were almost closed, his dark eyelashes hiding the stark green underneath them and his freckles stood out against his still too pale skin.

Her eyes involuntarily strayed to the dark blood stain on his side once again as she felt him shiver once more. She tried to press the unbidden memories of his seizure that had left him helpless in her arms only a day ago and reminded herself over and over that he was warm and wasn't in danger of loosing control again. That she wasn't in danger of loosing him again.

"Alec, you need to go back and rest." She spoke softly. The first words that had come to mind was that he was weak and needed to go be taken care of but to say something like that out loud to the stubborn and proud transgenic standing before her would be like giving him an open invitation to do the exact opposite. Alec would never allow anyone to think he was weak, even if the effort killed him in the process. The last thing she wanted right now was to get in a stupid fight that would risk his health.

But when he lifted his head to let their eyes lock onto each others, chocolate and green clashing together in a beautiful harmony she never thought she'd experience, she felt her own heart falter a beat.

His dark green eyes spoke in volumes to her. She had been so afraid to lay her own emotions on the line at the risk of getting hurt that she never chanced looking into his eyes. If she had she would have seen what she was seeing now. That he had already laid his own heart on his sleeve, letting everything show expressively through his own eyes when he looked at her. Physical pain, emotional anguish, hope, love, acceptance, need - all flitted through his sparkling eyes.

She toke a deep breath, leaning her body fully forward onto his and letting their bodies flush together like the last two pieces of a puzzle. She couldn't tell if he was shivering from the toll that his physical exertion was taking on his already injured body, from fear of being hurt worse than a bullet could ever cause, or from the need to be touched and comforted by her although he'd never utter such words out loud and admit the longing for gentle contact.

Finally, she let the breath escape out her lips and looked down, taking a second to mentally lower her defensive walls, before looking back up at him. She let everything she felt shine through her own eyes. Her own windows to the soul as Original Cindy had called them and silently thanked her friend for helping her find the key to unlock them for Alec. She held her next breath as she tried to express how much Alec meant to her, how much she cared about him as she reached up to stroke the side of his soft face.

Max never had a chance to let go of the breath she had been holding as Alec's lips crashed down on hers, capturing her full lips in a desperate kiss full of pent up sexual tension that she suspected was aimed at her. If she had been breathing properly, her breath would have been literally whisked away as she curled her fingers into his dark blonde locks, urging him for more, not wanting the taste of him to leave her tongue.

It was warm, passionate and filled her with such a complete feeling that she swore she could feel herself beginning to float as if she were suddenly full of helium. She parted her lips wider to give him better access and felt him softly moan into her mouth, the sound vibrating in her mind like a purr as he wrapped his arms tightly around her lithe waist.

This was how it was supposed to be. No hesitation or skirting around each other. No stuttering sappy speeches about when they had first fallen in love with each other or why they had done or said the things they had in the past. There would be time for memory lane conversations later. Right now all that mattered was this moment, right here and now. The two transgenics wrapped up in each others arms and giving in to each other's ultimate desires.

She couldn't believe she had spent so long worrying about what to say when she and Alec felt so right once they finally clicked together that they didn't even need words. In that instant she understood the hidden meanings of everything he'd done - his apparent jealousy of Zack, his irritation when she got him trapped in a closet so she could try and find the cure for Logan, him getting a job at Jam Pony and even hanging around Joshua's so often, how he'd always help her in any situation and kept coming back despite the verbal and sometime physical abuse she dealt out on him on a whim. She forgave him for everything, apologized for everything and knew he somehow knew it without whispering a single word between the two of them.

Alec had finally allowed Max to pull away from him when his breath started hitching, coming in short gasps because he had pushed his injured body too far instead of from their sudden, passionate make-out session.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Relishing in the heat forming in-between them and the wonderfully complete feeling that left them both tingling. They simply stared at each other, eyes speaking louder than the words they couldn't force to the tips of their tongues.

Words. Pfft. Alec was a master of words, and always had a quick comeback or answer without ever having to think for more than .5 seconds. The master of manipulation when it came to sweet-talking whatever he wanted. And here he was, with the girl of his dreams in his arms, making everything he'd ever wanted come true...and he was speechless. Only Max could have that effect on him.

"Come on." Her voice was slightly breathless as she spoke. "We REALLY need to get you back to your room." She leaned back and pulled his arm around her shoulder.

He jerked his arm back like he had been burned. There was no way Max really thought he was going to allow himself to be dragged back down the hallway like some wounded animal that couldn't walk on his own. He was a transgenic, an X5, an alpha male. He was more than human and certainly not too weak to manage his own body.

Max simply rolled her eyes. They'd kissed once and she already seemed to be able to read his mind. And he wasn't sure if he liked that or not. But then again, maybe she'd always been able to read his mind...or have some kind of psychic connection to him. How else did she always know when he was in trouble?

"I have an Alec radar." She said matter-of-factly.

"What?" He furrowed his brows in confusion before a shocked look settled on his handsome features. "...you really can read minds."

Max let out a short laugh; her smile radiating and beautiful.

"No." She lifted a hand to cup his cheek softly, letting the tips of her fingers brush his earlobe. A shudder went down his spine and he wondered if she did that on purpose. "When you let your guard down your like an open book."

He placed his hand over hers and squeezed it.

"Well stop reading my eyes. It's freaking me out." He joked.

"Only if you let me help you." Her smile faded from her face and became serious as Alec sighed. "Come on Alec. You got SHOT. Even transgenics don't heal that fast."

"I don't need-"

"Fine." She cut him off. "You don't need help because you're alright, you're always alright." She mocked his attitude and flipped her long silky hair over her shoulder. "Whatever. But it'd make ME feel better if you'd just let me do this for you."

He studied her wondering if she was secretly a psy-ops instead of an X5. It was like she knew he'd do anything for her and those were the magic words that would make him do whatever she asked.

"Fine." He muttered grudgingly and let her pull one of his arms across her shoulder while she grasped his wrist and wrapped her other arm around his waist. He could feel her body heat pressing into him again and smell the lilac scented conditioner she used and almost started purring. Almost. Maybe letting her help him wasn't so bad. He had to use less energy, it hurt physically alot less and he got to be this close to Max.

He should get shot more often.

"Ya know Maxie...if it's too much we could just stop. Take a break. On the floor. Together." He shifted his weight, nuzzling her cheek in suggestion.

"Yea right pretty boy. You can lay down when you're back on that mattress." She kept up her serious manner but he didn't miss the slight blush that flushed across her cheeks for a second before she forced it back down to focus on the mission at hand.

"Hoo-ray that mattress." He huffed. "I think the floor is more comfortable. Just have Joshua paint me a bed on the floor and I'll lay on that."

"I'll ask him about it when we get back. He's probably worried about you anyways..." She trailed off, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

He refused to meet eyes with her. If she could read his eyes right now, he'd keep them trained on the floor in front of him and focus on moving one foot in front of the other. Even with Max's help, his body and this trek was quickly robbing him of his energy as he fought to control his breaths and keep them even so Max wouldn't get suspicious or worried.

She must have felt the hitching movements in his chest so close to her however.

"Maybe we should take a break after all..."

Alec shook his head. No way was he going to take a pity break. Didn't he already go over this with her? No wait, that was all just in his head...oh well, no point in wasting breath or dignity points now.

"No, no. You were right. I want to lay down on that god-awful mattress and have that loose spring try to impale my leg while I sleep again."

Thankfully, she didn't respond and just accepted his stubbornness to keep moving as they made their way back, probably mulling over the same thoughts he was having this very moment.

When he'd gotten shot he'd expected Max to leave him behind. He never thought she'd risk her own life to stay with him, taking care of him until the end. And when he woke up he assumed she'd start yelling about what a screw-up he was for getting shot in the first place. Not this. He'd dreamt about this. But he never thought his dreams would become a reality.

When he had left Joshua in the room he had every intention of pinning Max up against the wall and demanding to know what crazy feline female thoughts were running through her mind and not leaving until she gave him her consent to murder Logan. But he'd never imagined that he would have been the one pinned up against the wall instead, not even needing to vocalize their feelings.

He hadn't gotten far from the room by the time he had been faltering, needing to pause and lean heavily against the wall for breath as his legs threatened to give out from under him. His own body had been angry that he was betraying it in such a way by chasing Max when he needed to be lying down instead. When he heard footsteps and smelled her particular scent drifting closer he quickly pulled himself together to lean against the wall in what he hoped was a casual 'no-I-wasn't-stalking-you' way.

His perfectly trained mind had flown out the window with his entire tactic training when she rounded the corner, looking just as perfect and beautiful as he ever remembered her. His mouth opened and responded to her questions in some lame response about scenery.

Scenery. He saw better scenery in the sewers than in this dismal and bleak hallway.

And when she let her guard down and allowed him to see into her soul, everything had suddenly become apparently clear in that instant. It was like a smack in the face, and in fact, he felt like smacking himself in the face for not realizing it sooner. He felt like smacking himself in the face for being such a coward and a girl about his feelings instead of bravely owning up to them like the solider he was supposed to be. Maybe if he had, he and Max would be past this already, having been together and pushed Logan to the curb long ago and they never would have gone on that mission. He never would have needed to risk his life and worry Max like that.

Speaking of the ordinary, he was thankful he had the sensibility to not still be in the room when they finally staggered back in.

Neither was Joshua however, the only reminder that he had been there was the wall covered by the clashing abstract swirls and strokes that blurred together in his own artistically Joshua way.

Max threw him down lightly on the bed and for a second he thought he could see horror dawn on her face that she may have injured him further with her roughness, which he brushed off with a casual joke. He loved how Max was and he wasn't about to let her trade that hellcat attitude for some whimpering romantic gesture. He wanted the real Max - spite and punches and all. Not some girly girl that she may feel like she needed to be around him now that they'd fully accepted each other into their lives as more than just friends. He was greatly glad that he'd never have to worry about her trying to tell someone else that they 'weren't like that', like she had with Logan. They were defiantly 'like that'.

"Gee Maxie, can't you act like a woman and be gentle for once in your life?" He grinned up at her and she crossed her arms smiling back down at him.

"Nope. Guess your just gonna have to be a man and suck it up."

Alec shook his head and a small scrap of paper on the mattress caught his attention. Picking it up, he recognized Logan's untidy scrawl across it.

'Take care of her.' Was all it said. He narrowed his eyes and balled the note up in his fist, knowing Max had seen what had been written on it with her superior eyesight.

"Yea. Like I need HIM to tell me that." His voice had almost a growl to it as he tossed the offending paper over his shoulder onto the floor to be forgotten. Despite the heavy words Logan had tossed him earlier when they were alone in the room, the small note had been his way of giving in. Of finally stepping aside and letting Alec fully have Max without his antics in the way. Part of him was grateful that the human had accepted defeat and decided to do the right thing and just let Max be happy. But part of him was frustrated that it had taken him this long to bow his head and that he had pushed at Max for so long as if the poor girl were his personal yo-yo while treating Alec like some kid that was trying to steal his favorite toy.

Logan had been his obstacle for too long and Alec was glad to finally get to quit jumping the hurdles and leave the race track.

Max's eyes followed the paper bouncing across the floor and rolling into the shadows and let a smile grace her lips before she leaned forward to press them on Alec's once more. A softer, calmer kiss than before.

She looked deep into his eyes, letting sincerity leak into her voice. Something that was rare when talking to the famous X5 female.

"Thank you for catching me."

Alec blinked in confusion for only a second before wrapping a hand around the base of her neck, tracing his fingers across her barcode before pulling her back down for another kiss that left them both tingling afterwards.

"Always."

End


End file.
